PIERRE  LOTI'S  CAT. 

~ 

tnrved  Aiijiora  Kitten  Rescued  front 
the   Streets  Too   I<«tc. 

Long  agony  and  auair  of  our  little  oat, 
Mahmoud.  With  us  the  little  martyr 
•assed  four  or  five  Lappy  days  of  exisi-  | 
nee,  Pierre  Loti  writes  from  Stamboul  j 
o  the  Revue  des  Di-ux  Mondes,  Par's  i 
translated  for  the  Kansas  City  Star). 

Wo    had    found    h:,i;    in    the    Palace    de  I 
lahmoud    Pasha,    -eated    in    an    attitude 
>f   supreme    resign  ition    in    the    shadows' 
.gainst    a    house     vail.     He    had    neither  i 
|  Jpoken  nor  pleaded   i  c  i    moved  a  muscle  j 
i  -an     amazingly     small,     an     utterly     di- 
f  ninutive  cat,  the  tiny   body  pinched  with  I 
i  aunger    and    wretchedness,    but    with    a  I 
veritable    love    of    a    face — the    prettiest ! 
and  most  intelligent  feline  face  that  ever) 
I  had  seen. 

He    was    a    dark    grry    Angora,    near'y  i 
black,  with  a  paten  of  lighter  gray  just  j 
under   the    chin;    pe-haps   3   or   4    months) 
old,    but    far    too    liny    for    his    age— his 
•h    evidently    stunted    by    privations. 
the    little    v.at's    face    was    so    altj- 
er  adorable  that  we  had  drawn  near; 
• 'aen  he  had  spoken  to  us,  looking  up 
i.-ur  fiice?:     "V<^s,   I   am,  indeed,  most 
a   poor   little    deserted   nothing, 
us  you  can   see." 

And   so,   when  we  bad   determined   thnt 
s   quite   owntrless,  we   had   carried 
in    home    with    us.      And    here    at    our 
mse  he  felt  that  he  was  Indeed  s-<?curc 
id  safe  from  har;n,   and   therefor  3  dtm- 
jstrated     hi8     grateful     affection.       We 
!  illed    him     Mahmoi'd    after     the     place 
(here  we  had  found  him,  and  the  name, 
pggesting,   as   it   Jots,   huge   mammoths, 
eemed  droll  applied  to  so  sorry  a  little 
reature. 

Mahmoud  was  unhappy  if  either  my 
=on  or  I  was  out,  of  his  sight,  only 
grudgingly  accepting  the  companionship 
of  the  servants,  nud  followed  us  about 
everywhere,  scampering  uncertainly  on 
wabbly  little  losrs  which  seemed  scarce- 
ly strong  enough  to  sustain  his  insignifi- 
cant weight.  And  he  made  no  great  to  do 
over  the  nice  milk  and  porridge  we  ga^e 
him.  Ho  had  suffered  so  much  and  his 


mother's  nursing.  So  my  servant,  Djerall, 
finally  found  the  dfpn-ed  tabby  at  the 
house  of  a  neighbor  woman.  Anyhow,  t 
was  time  that  her  Kittens  were  weaned: 
so  the  old  woman  consented  that  theU' 
mother  should  come  to  us  twice  a  day  at 
3  sous  the  visit— which  came  to  6  sous  — 
for  mother's  milk. 

My  Colossus.  Djemil.  went  after  I.hc 
mother  cat  with  a  1-afket,  and  while  the 
invalid  took  nourishment,  Djemil  had  to 
hold  the  mother  by  :<M  four  legs,  since 
the  maternal  function  nppeafed  to  enrage 
her  beyond  measure.  And,  following  her 
service  as  nurse,  toe  mother  cat  \vjs 
regularly  presented  ^\  ith  porridge  whicn 
she  gluttonly  bo'.tjd  and  thea  tore  for 
home  as  tho«gh  the  cevil  were  after  her. 

But  though  the  f>»iihe  nurse  came  every 
morning  and  evening,  Mahmoud  continued 
to  fail;  and  daily  nie  tenderness  and  ca- 
pacity for  affection  seemed  to  increase. 
He  cried  whenever  he  was  left  alone  and 
now  no  longer  -.les'.rtd  to  abandon  tils 
post  on  my  shoulder  where,  with  head 
rammed  into  my  neck,  he  forgot  his  trou- 
bles. 

Then  his  hair  began  to  stand  aw.'v, 
matted  with  things  that  we  tried  to  make 
him  eat;  he  was  f-ut  becoming  a  rather 
repulsive  little  wr»ti-h.  But  the  hea 
big  for  the  emaciated  body,  remaini^^P 
pretty  as  ever,  ind  the  eyes  were  un- 
changed, too.  so  oleadlng  and  so  full  of 
pratitude  they  seemed.  But  he  was 
doomed,  and  It  really  seemed  as  thoufb 
he  knew  it  as  he  i-'oked  at  us  with  sal- 
ness  and  dumb  entreaty  in  his  gaze. 

And  so  this  morning  lie  could  no  longer 
get  to  his  feet;  >  et  whenever  one  of 
us  approached  he  raised  his  head  to 
thank  us  wth  his  3res  and  feeb>  purr.-d. 
This  evening  he  ftretched  himself  out 
very  flat,  as  cats  vi'l  v.  hen  death  is  nea~. 
My  son  and  I  took  tu'-ns  by  his  8i4e;  -in-1 
he  knew  that  we  vor~  there  and  m«ide 
brave  attempts  to  ourr  his  never  failing 
gratitude  as  we  bent  close  to  hear. 

My  son  stayed  thevP  on  hig  knees  unri 
1  o'clock  in  the  morning — until  afte 
«,evernl  oopv1i1sU>*iP  of  njro'iv,  thn  "inal 
body  was  stiff  and  rold  a  poor  apd  pitiful 
little  thing.  His  1'ttle  thoughts, 
dumb  tenderness,  hip  small  conscious- 
ness of  existence — who  can  say  whithtr 
they  have  flown? 


RAMUNTCHO 


BY 

PIERRE    LOTI 

AUTHOR   OF 

"Iceland  Fisherman,"    "Madame  Chrysantheme,"  Etc.,   Etc. 


Translated  by  Henri  Pene  du   Bois 


NEW  YORK 
R.  F.  FENNO  &  COMPANY 

9  and  ii  EAST  16™  STREET 


Copyright,  1897 

BY 
R.  F.  FENNO  &  COMPANY 


RAMUNTCHO. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  sad  curlews,  annunciators  of  the  autumn, 
had  just  appeared  in  a  mass  in  a  gray  squall,  flee- 
ing from  the  high  sea  under  the  threat  of  ap- 
proaching tempests.  At  the  mouth  of  the  south- 
ern rivers,  of  the  Adour,  of  the  Nivelle,  of  the 
Bidassoa  which  runs  by  Spain,  they  wandered 
above  the  waters  already  cold,  flying  low,  skim- 
ming, with  their  wings  over  the  mirror-like  sur- 
faces. And  their  cries,  at  the  fall  of  the  October 
night,  seemed  to  ring  the  annual  half-death  of 
the  exhausted  plants. 

On  the  Pyrenean  lands,  all  bushes  and  vast 
woods,  the  melancholy  of  the  rainy  nights  of  de- 
clining seasons  fell  slowly,  enveloping  like  a 
shroud,  while  Ramuntcho  walked  on  the  moss- 

[5] 


6  Ramuntcho. 

covered  path,  without  noise,  shod  with  rope  soles, 
supple  and  silent  in  his  mountaineer's  tread. 

Ramuntcho  was  coming  on  foot  from  a  very 
long  distance,  ascending  the  regions  neighbor- 
ing the  Bay  of  Biscay,  toward  his  isolated  house 
which  stood  above,  in  a  great  deal  of  shade,  near 
the  Spanish  frontier. 

Around  the  solitary  passer-by,  who  went  up  so 
quickly  without  trouble  and  whose  march  in 
sandals  was  not  heard,  distances  more  and  more 
profound  deepened  on  all  sides,  blended  in  twi- 
light and  mist. 

The  autumn,  the  autumn  marked  itself  every- 
where. The  corn,  herb  of  the  lowlands,  so 
magnificently  green  in  the  Spring,  displayed 
shades  of  dead  straw  in  the  depths  of  the  valleys, 
and,  on  all  the  summits,  beeches  and  oaks  shed 
their  leaves.  The  air  was  almost  cold;  an  odor- 
ous humidity  came  out  of  the  mossy  earth  and, 
at  times,  there  came  from  above  a  light  shower. 
One  felt  it  near  and  anguishing,  that  season  of 
clouds  and  of  long  rains,  which  returns  every 
time  with  the  same  air  of  bringing  the  definitive 
exhaustion  of  saps  and  irremediable  death, — but 
which  passes  like  all  things  and  which  one  forgets 
at  the  following  spring. 

Everywhere,  in  the  wet  of  the  leaves  strewing 
the  earth,  in  the  wet  of  the  herbs  long  and  bent, 


Ramuntcho.  7 

there  was  a  sadness  of  death,  a  dumb  resignation 
to  fecund  decomposition. 

But  the  autumn,  when  it  comes  to  put  an  end 
to  the  plants,  brings  only  a  sort  of  far-off  warning 
to  man,  a  little  more  durable,  who  resists  several 
winters  and  lets  himself  be  lured  several  times  by 
the  charm  of  spring.  Man,  in  the  rainy  nights 
of  October  and  of  November,  feels  especially  the 
instinctive  desire  to  seek  shelter  at  home,  to 
warm  himself  at  the  hearth,  under  the  roof 
which  so  many  thousand  years  amassed  have 
taught  him  progressively  to  build. — And  Ra- 
muntcho felt  awakening  in  the  depths  of  his  be- 
ing the  old  ancestral  aspirations  for  the  Basque 
home  of  the  country,  the  isolated  home,  unat- 
tached to  the  neighboring  homes.  He  hastened 
his  steps  the  more  toward  the  primitive  dwelling 
where  his  mother  was  waiting  for  him. 

Here  and  there,  one  perceived  them  in  the 
distance,  indistinct  in  the  twilight,  the  Basque 
houses,  very  distant  from  one  another,  dots 
white  or  grayish,  now  in  the  depth  of  some  gorge 
steeped  in  darkness,  then  on  some  ledge  of  the 
mountains  with  summits  lost  in  the  obscure  sky. 
Almost  inconsequential  are  these  human  habit- 
ations, in  the  immense  and  confused  entirety  of 
things;  inconsequential  and  even  annihilated 
quite,  at  this  hour,  before  the  majesty  of  the  soli- 
tude and  of  the  eternal  forest  nature. 


8  Ramuntcho. 

Ramuntcho  ascended  rapidly,  lithe,  bold  and 
young,  still  a  child,  likely  to  play  on  his  road  as 
little  mountaineers  play,  with  a  rock,  a  reed,  or 
a  twig  that  one  whittles  while  walking.  The  air 
was  growing  sharper,  the  environment  harsher, 
and  already  he  ceased  to  hear  the  cries  of  the 
curlews,  their  rusty-pulley  cries,  on  the  rivers  be- 
neath. But  Ramuntcho  was  singing  one  of  those 
plaintive  songs  of  the  olden  time,  which  are  still 
transmitted  in  the  depths  of  the  distant  lands,  and 
his  naive  voice  went  through  the  mist  or  the  rain, 
among  the  wet  branches  of  the  oaks,  under  the 
grand  shroud,  more  and  more  sombre;  of  isol- 
ation, of  autumn  and  of  night. 

He  stopped  for  an  instant,  pensive,  to  see  a 
cart  drawn  by  oxen  pass  at  a  great  distance  above 
him.  The  cowboy  who  drove  the  slow  team 
sang  also;  through  a  bad  and  rocky  path,  they 
descended  into  a  ravine  bathed  in  shadows  al- 
ready nocturnal. 

And  soon  they  disappeared  in  a  turn  of  the 
path,  masked  suddenly  by  trees,  as  if  they  had 
vanished  in  an  abyss.  Then  Ramuntcho  felt  the 
grasp  of  an  unexpected  melancholy,  unexplained 
like  most  of  his  complex  impressions,  and,  with 
an  habitual  gesture,  while  he  resumed  his  less 
alert  march,  he  brought  down  like  a  visor  on  his 
gray  eyes,  very  sharp  and  very  soft,  the  crown  of 
his  woolen  Basque  cap. 


Ramuntcho.  9 

Why? — What  had  to  do  with  him  this  cart,  this 
singing  cowboy  whom  he  did  not  even  know? — 
Evidently  nothing — and  yet,  for  having  seen 
them  disappear  into  a  lodging,  as  they  did  doubt- 
less every  night,  into  some  farm  isolated  in  a  low- 
land, a  more  exact  realization  had  come  to  him 
of  the  humble  life  of  the  peasant,  attached  to  the 
soil  and  to  the  native  field,  of  those  human  lives 
as  destitute  of  joy  as  beasts  of  burden,  but  with 
declines  more  prolonged  and  more  lamentable. 
And,  at  the  same  time,  through  his  mind  had 
passed  the  intuitive  anxiety  for  other  places,  for 
the  thousand  other  things  that  one  may  see  or  do 
in  this  world  and  which  one  may  enjoy;  a  chaos 
of  troubling  half  thoughts,  of  atavic  reminis- 
cences and  of  phantoms  had  furtively  marked 
themselves  in  the  depths  of  his  savage  child's 
mind — 

For  Ramuntcho  was  a  mixture  of  two  races 
very  different  and  of  two  beings  separated,  if  one 
may  say  it,  by  an  abyss  of  several  generations. 
Created  by  the  sad  fantasy  of  one  of  the  refined 
personages  of  our  dazzled  epoch,  he  had  been 
inscribed  at  his  birth  as  the  "son  of  an  unknown 
father"  and  he  bore  no  other  name  than  that  of 
his  mother.  So,  he  did  not  feel  that  he  was  quite 
similar  to  his  companions  in  games  and  healthy 
fatigues. 


io  Ramuntcho. 

Silent  for  a  moment,  he  walked  less  quickly  to- 
ward his  house,  on  the  deserted  paths  winding 
on  the  heights.  In  him,  the  chaos  of  other  things, 
of  the  luminous  "other  places",  of  the  splendors 
or  of  the  terrors  foreign  to  his  own  life,  agitated 
itself  confusedly,  trying  to  disentangle  itself — 
But  no,  all  this,  being  indistinct  and  incom- 
prehensible, remained  formless  in  the  darkness — 

At  last,  thinking  no  more  of  it,  he  began  to 
sing  his  song  again.  The  song  told,  in  monoto- 
nous couplets,  the  complaint  of  a  linen  weaver 
whose  lover  in  a  distant  war  prolonged  his  ab- 
sence. It  was  written  in  that  mysterious  Eus- 
karian  language,  the  age  of  which  seems  incalcu- 
lable and  the  origin  of  which  remains  unknown. 
And  little  by  little,  under  the  influence  of  the 
ancient  melody,  of  the  wind  and  of  the  solitude, 
Ramuntcho  found  himself  as  he  was  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  walk,  a  simple  Basque  mountain- 
eer, sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old,  formed  like 
a  man,  but  retaining  the  ignorance  and  the  can- 
dor of  a  little  boy. 

Soon  he  perceived  Etchezar,  his  parish,  its 
belfry  massive  as  the  dungeon  of  a  fortress ;  near 
the  church,  some  houses  were  grouped;  otherSj 
more  numerous,  had  preferred  to  be  disseminated 
in  the  surroundings,  among  trees,  in  ravines  or 
on  bluffs.  The  night  fell  entirely,  hastily  that 


Ramuntcho.  1 1 

evening,  because  of  the  sombre  veils  hooked  to 
the  great  summits. 

Around  this  village,  above  or  in  the  valleys, 
the  Basque  country  appeared,  at  that  moment, 
like  a  confusion  of  gigantic,  obscure  masses. 
Long  mists  disarranged  the  perspectives;  all  the 
distances,  all  the  depths  had  become  inappreci- 
able, the  changing  mountains  seemed  to  have 
grown  taller  in  the  nebulous  phantasmagoria  of 
night.  The  hour,  one  knew  not  why,  became 
strangely  solemn,  as  if  the  shade  of  past  centuries 
was  to  come  out  of  the  soil.  On  the  vast  lifting- 
up  which  is  called  the  Pyrenees,  one  felt  some- 
thing soaring  which  was,  perhaps,  the  finishing 
mind  of  that  race,  the  fragments  of  which  have 
been  preserved  and  to  which  Ramuntcho  be- 
longed by  his  mother — 

And  the  child,  composed  of  two  essences  so 
diverse,  who  was  walking  alone  toward  his 
dwelling,  through  the  night  and  the  rain,  began 
again  in  the  depth  of  his  double  being  to  feel  the 
anxiety  of  inexplicable  reminiscences. 

At  last  he  arrived  in  front  of  his  house, — which 
was  very  elevated,  in  the  Basque  fashion,  with 
old  wooden  balconies  under  narrow  windows, 
the  glass  of  which  threw  into  the  night  the  light 
of  a  lamp.  As  he  came  near  the  entrance,  the 
light  noise  of  his  walk  became  feebler  in  the 


1 2  Ramuntcho. 

thickness  of  the  dead  leaves:  the  leaves  of  those 
plane-trees  shaped  like  vaults  which,  according  to 
the  usage  of  the  land,  form  a  sort  of  atrium  be- 
fore each  dwelling. 

She  recognized  from  afar  the  steps  of  her  son, 
the  serious  Franchita,  pale  and  straight  in  her 
black  clothes, —  the  one  who  formerly  had  loved 
and  followed  the  stranger;  then,  who,  feeling  her 
desertion  approaching,  had  returned  courageous- 
ly to  the  village  in  order  to  inhabit  alone  the 
dilapidated  house  of  her  deceased  parents. 
Rather  than  to  live  in  the  vast  city,  and  to  be 
troublesome  and  a  solicitor  there,  she  had  quick- 
ly resolved  to  depart,  to  renounce  everything,  to 
make  a  simple  Basque  peasant  of  that  little  Ra- 
muntcho, who,  at  his  entrance  in  life,  had  worn 
gowns  embroidered  in  white  silk. 

It  was  fifteen  years  ago,  fifteen  years,  when  she 
returned,  clandestinely,  at  a  fall  of  night  similar 
to  this  one.  In  the  first  days  of  this  return,  dumb 
and  haughty  to  her  former  companions  from  fear 
of  their  disdain,  she  would  go  out  only  to  go  to 
church,  her  black  cloth  mantilla  lowered  on  her 
eyes.  Then,  at  length,  when  curiosity  was  ap- 
peased, she  had  returned  to  her  habits,  so  val- 
iantly and  so  irreproachably  that  all  had  forgiven 
her. 

To  greet  and  embrace  her  son  she  smiled  with 


Ramuntcho.  1 3 

joy  and  tenderness,  but,  silent  by  nature  and  re- 
served as  both  were,  they  said  to  each  other  only 
what  it  was  useful  to  say. 

He  sat  at  his  accustomed  place  to  eat  the  soup 
and  the  smoking  dish  which  she  served  to  him 
without  speaking.  The  room,  carefully  kalso- 
mined,  was  made  gay  by  the  sudden  light  of  a 
flame  of  branches  in  the  tall  and  wide  chimney 
ornamented  with  a  festoon  of  white  calico.  In 
frames,  hooked  in  good  order,  there  were  images 
of  Ramuntcho's  first  communion  and  different 
figures  of  saints  with  Basque  legends;  then  the 
Virgin  of  Pilar,  the  Virgin  of  Anguish,  and 
rosaries,  and  blessed  palms.  The  kitchen  uten- 
sils shone,  in  a  line  on  shelves  sealed  to  the  walls ; 
every  shelf  ornamented  with  one  of  those  pink 
paper  frills,  cut  in  designs,  which  are  manufac- 
tured in  Spain  and  on  which  are  printed,  invari- 
ably, series  of  personages  dancing  with  castanets, 
or  scenes  in  the  lives  of  the  toreadors.  In  this 
white  interior,  before  this  joyful  and  clear  chim- 
ney, one  felt  an  impression  of  home,  a  tranquil 
welfare,  which  was  augmented  by  the  notion  of 
the  vast,  wet,  surrounding  night,  of  the  grand 
darkness  of  the  valleys,  of  the  mountains  and  of 
the  woods. 

Franchita,  as  every  evening,  looked  long  at 
her  son,  looked  at  him  embellishing  and  growing, 


14  Ramuntcho. 

taking  more  and  more  an  air  of  decision  and  of 
force,  as  his  brown  mustache  was  more  and  more 
marked  above  his  fresh  lips. 

When  he  had  supped,  eaten  with  his  young 
mountaineer's  appetite  several  slices  of  bread  and 
drunk  two  glasses  of  cider,  he  rose,  saying: 

"  I  am  going  to  sleep,  for  we  have  to  work  to- 
night." 

"Ah! "  exclaimed  the  mother,  "and  when  are 
you  to  get  up?  " 

"At  one  o'clock,  as  soon  as  the  moon  sets. 
They  will  whistle  under  the  window." 

"  What  is  it?  " 

"  Bundles  of  silk  and  bundles  of  velvet." 

"  With  whom  are  you  going?  " 

"  The  same  as  usual :  Arrochkoa,  Florentine 
and  the  Iragola  brothers.  It  is,  as  it  was  the 
other  night,  for  Itchoua,  with  whom  I  have  just 
made  an  engagement.  Good-night,  mother — 
Oh,  we  shall  not  be  out  late  and,  sure,  I  will  be 
back  before  mass." 

Then,  Franchita  leaned  her  head  on  the  solid 
shoulder  of  her  son,  in  a  coaxing  humor  almost 
infantile,  different  suddenly  from  her  habitual 
manner,  and,  her  cheek  against  his,  she  remained 
tenderly  leaning,  as  if  to  say  in  a  confident 
abandonment  of  her  will:  "  I  am  still  troubled  a 
little  by  those  night  undertakings;  but,  when  I 


Ramimtcho.  15 

reflect,  what  you  wish  is  always  well;  I  am  de- 
pendent on  you,  and  you  are  everything — " 

On  the  shoulder  of  the  stranger,  formerly,  it 
was  her  custom  to  lean  and  to  abandon  herself 
thus,  in  the  time  when  she  loved  him. 

When  Ramuntcho  had  gone  to  his  little  room, 
she  stayed  thinking  for  a  longer  time  than  usual 
before  resuming  her  needlework.  So,  it  became 
decidedly  his  trade,  this  night  work  in  which  one 
risks  receiving  the  bullets  of  Spain's  carbineers! 
— He  had  begun  for  amusement,  in  bravado,  like 
most  of  them,  and  as  his  friend  Arrochkoa  was 
beginning,  in  the  same  band  as  he;  then,  little  by 
little,  he  had  made  a  necessity  of  this  continual 
adventure  in  dark  nights;  he  deserted  more  and 
more,  for  this  rude  trade,  the  open  air  workshop 
of  the  carpenter  where  she  had  placed  him  as  an 
apprentice  to  carve  beams  out  of  oak  trunks. 

And  that  was  what  he  would  be  in  life,  her 
little  Ramuntcho,so  coddled  formerly  in  his  white 
gown  and  for  whom  she  had  formed  naively  so 
many  dreams:  a  smuggler!  Smuggler  and  pelota 
player, — two  things  which  go  well  together  and 
which  are  essentially  Basque. 

She  hesitated  still,  however,  to  let  him  follow 
that  unexpected  vocation.  Not  in  disdain  for 
smugglers,  oh,  no,  for  her  father  had  been  a 
smuggler;  her  two  brothers  also;  the  elder  killed 


1 6  Ramuntcho. 

by  a  Spanish  bullet  in  the  forehead,  one  night 
that  he  was  swimming  across  the  Bidassoa,  the 
second  a  refugee  in  America  to  escape  the  Bay- 
onne  prison;  both  respected  for  their  audacity 
and  their  strength.  No,  but  he,  Ramuntcho,  the 
son  of  the  stranger,  he,  doubtless,  might  have  had 
pretensions  to  lead  a  less  harsh  life  than  these 
men  if,  in  a  hasty  and  savage  moment,  she  had 
not  separated  him  from  his  father  and  brought 
him  back  to  the  Basque  mountains.  In  truth,  he 
was  not  heartless,  Ramuntcho's  father;  when, 
fatally,  he  had  wearied  of  her,  he  had  made  some 
efforts  not  to  let  her  see  it  and  never  would  he 
have  abandoned  her  with  her  child  if,  in  her  pride, 
she  had  not  quitted  him.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
her  duty  to-day  to  write  to  him,  to  ask  him  to 
think  of  his  son — 

And  now  the  image  of  Gracieuse  presented  it- 
self naturally  to  her  mind,  as  it  did  every  time 
she  thought  of  Ramuntcho's  future.  She  was 
the  little  betrothed  whom  she  had  been  wishing 
for  him  for  ten  years.  (In  the  sections  of  country 
unacquainted  with  modern  fashions,  it  is  usual  to 
marry  when  very  young  and  often  to  know  and 
select  one  another  for  husband  and  wife  in  the 
first  years  of  life.)  A  little  girl  with  hair  fluffed 
in  a  gold  mist,  daughter  of  a  friend  of  her  child- 
hood, of  a  certain  Dolores  Detcharry,  who  had 


Ramuntcho.  1 7 

been  always  conceited — and  who  had  remained 
contemptuous  since  the  epoch  of  the  great  fault. 
Certainly,  the  father's  intervention  in  the 
future  of  Ramuntcho  would  have  a  decisive  in- 
fluence in  obtaining  the  hand  of  that  girl — and 
would  permit  even  of  asking  it  of  Dolores  with 
haughtiness,  after  the  ancient  quarrel.  But 
Franchita  felt  a  great  uneasiness  in  her,  increas- 
ing as  the  thought  of  addressing  herself  to  that 
man  became  more  precise.  And  then,  she  re- 
called the  look,  so  often  sombre,  of  the  stranger, 
she  recalled  his  vague  words  of  infinite  lassitude, 
of  incomprehensible  despair;  he  had  the  air  of 
seeing  always,  beyond  her  horizon,  distant  abys- 
ses and  darkness,  and,  although  he  was  not  an 
insulter  of  sacred  things,  never  would  he  pray, 
thus  giving  to  her  this  excess  of  remorse,  of 
having  allied  herself  to  some  pagan  to  whom 
heaven  would  be  closed  forever.  His  friends 
were  similar  to  him,  refined  also,  faithless,  prayer- 
less,  exchanging  among  themselves  in  frivolous 
words  abyssmal  thoughts. — Oh,  if  Ramuntcho 
by  contact  with  them  were  to  become  similar  to 
them  all! — desert  the  churches,  fly  from  the 
sacraments  and  the  mass! — Then,  she  remem- 
bered the  letters  of  her  old  father, — now  decom- 
posed in  the  profound  earth,  under  a  slab  of  gran- 
ite, near  the  foundations  of  his  parish  church — 


1 8  Ramuntcho. 

those  letters  in  Euskarian  tongue  which  he  wrote 
to  her,  after  the  first  months  of  indignation  and  of 
silence,  in  the  city  where  she  had  dragged  her 
fault.  "At  least,  my  poor  Franchita,  my  daugh- 
ter, are  you  in  a  country  where  the  men  are  pious 
and  go  to  church  regularly? — "  Oh!  no,  they 
were  hardly  pious,  the  men  of  the  great  city,  not 
more  the  fashionable  ones  who  were  in  the  socie- 
ty of  Ramuntcho's  father  than  the  humblest 
laborers  in  the  suburban  district  where  she  lived 
hidden;  all  carried  away  by  the  same  current  far 
from  the  hereditary  dogmas,  far  from  the  antique 
symbols. — And  Ramuntcho,  in  such  surround- 
ings, how  would  he  resist? — 

Other  reasons,  less  important  perhaps,  re- 
tained her  also.  Her  haughty  dignity,  which  in 
that  city  had  maintained  her  honest  and  solitary, 
revolted  truly  at  the  idea  that  she  would  have  to 
reappear  as  a  solicitor  before  her  former  lover. 
Then,  her  superior  commonsense,  which  nothing 
had  ever  been  able  to  lead  astray  or  to  dazzle, 
told  her  that  it  was  too  late  now  to  change  any- 
thing; that  Ramuntcho,  until  now  ignorant  and 
free,  would  not  know  how  to  attain  the  dangerous 
regions  where  the  intelligence  of  his  father  had 
elevated  itself,  but  that  he  would  languish  at  the 
bottom,  like  one  outclassed.  And,  in  fine,  a  senti- 
ment which  she  hardly  confessed  to  herself, 


Ramuntcho.  19 

lingered  powerfully  in  the  depths  of  her  heart: 
the  fear  of  losing  her  son,  of  guiding  him  no 
longer,  of  holding  him  no  longer,  of  having  him 
no  longer. — And  so,  in  that  instant  of  decisive 
reflection,  after  having  hesitated  for  years,  she 
inclined  more  and  more  to  remain  stubborn  in 
her  silence  with  regard  to  the  stranger  and  to 
let  pass  humbly  near  her  the  life  of  her  Ra- 
muntcho, under  the  protecting  looks  of  the  Vir- 
gin and  the  saints. — There  remained  unsolved  the 
question  of  Gracieuse  Detcharry. — Well,  she 
would  marry,  in  spite  of  everything,  her  son, 
smuggler  and  poor  though  he  be!  With  her 
instinct  of  a  mother  somewhat  savagely  loving, 
she  divined  that  the  little  girl  was  enamoured 
enough  not  to  fall  out  of  love  ever ;  she  had  seen 
this  in  her  fifteen  year  old  black  eyes,  obstinate 
and  grave  under  the  golden  nimbus  of  her  hair. — 
Gracieuse  marrying  Ramuntcho  for  his  charm 
alone,  in  spite  of  and  against  maternal  will! — The 
rancor  and  vindictiveness  that  lurked  in  the  mind 
of  Franchita  rejoiced  suddenly  at  that  great 
triumph  over  the  pride  of  Dolores. — 

Around  the  isolated  house  where,  tinder  the 
grand  silence  of  midnight,  she  decided  alone  her 
son's  future,  the  spirit  of  the  Basque  ancestors 
passed,  sombre  and  jealous  also,  disdainful  of  the 
stranger,  fearful  of  impiety,  of  changes,  of  evolu- 


2O  Ramuntcho. 

tions  of  races; — the  spirit  of  the  Basque  ances- 
tors, the  old  immutable  spirit  which  still  main- 
tains that  people  with  eyes  turned  toward  the 
anterior  ages;  the  mysterious  antique  spirit  by 
which  the  children  are  led  to  act  as  before  them 
their  fathers  had  acted,  at  the  side  of  the  same 
mountains,  in  the  same  villages,  around  the  same 
belfries. — 

The  noise  of  steps  now,  in  the  dark,  outside ! — 
Someone  walking  softly  in  sandals  on  the  thick- 
ness of  the  plane-tree  leaves  strewing  the  soil. — 
Then,  a  whistled  appeal. — 

What,  already! — Already  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning! — 

Quite  resolved  now,  she  opened  the  door  to 
the  chief  smuggler  with  a  smile  of  greeting  that 
the  latter  had  never  seen  in  her: 

"  Come  in,  Itchoua,"  she  said,  "warm  yourself 
— while  I  go  wake  up  my  son." 

A  tall  and  large  man,  that  Itchoua,  thin,  with 
a  thick  chest,  clean  shaven  like  a  priest,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  fashion  of  the  old  time  Basque ; 
under  the  cap  which  he  never  took  off,  a  color- 
less face,  inexpressive,  cut  as  with  a  pruning 
hook,  and  recalling  the  beardless  personages 
archaically  drawn  on  the  missals  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  Above  his  hollow  cheeks,  the  breadth 
of  the  jaws,  the  jutting  out  of  the  muscles  of  the 


Ramuntcho.  2 1 

neck  gave  the  idea  of  his  extreme  force.  He  was 
of  the  Basque  type,  excessively  accentuated; 
eyes  caved-in  too  much  under  the  frontal  arcade  ; 
eyebrows  of  rare  length,  the  points  of  which, 
lowered  as  on  the  figures  of  tearful  madonnas^ 
almost  touched  the  hair  at  the  temples.  Between 
thirty  and  fifty  years,  it  was  impossible  to  assign 
an  age  to  him.  His  name  was  Jose-Maria  Go- 
rosteguy;  but,  according  to  the  custom  he  was 
known  in  the  country  by  the  surname  of  Itchoua 
(the  Blind)  given  to  him  in  jest  formerly,  because, 
of  his  piercing  sight  which  plunged  in  the  night 
like  that  of  cats.  He  was  a  practising  Christianj 
a  church  warden  of  his  parish  and  a  chorister 
with  a  thundering  voice.  He  was  famous  also 
for  his  power  of  resistance  to  fatigue,  being 
capable  of  climbing  the  Pyrenean  slopes  for 
hours  at  racing  speed  with  heavy  loads  on  his 
back. 

Ramuntcho  came  down  soon,  rubbing  his 
eyelids,  still  heavy  from  a  youthful  sleep,  and,  at 
his  aspect,  the  gloomy  visage  of  Itchoua  was  il- 
luminated by  a  smile.  A  continual  seeker  for 
energetic  and  strong  boys  that  he  might  enroll 
in  his  band,  and  knowing  how  to  keep  them  in 
spite  of  small  wages,  by  a  sort  of  special  point  of 
honor,  he  was  an  expert  in  legs  and  in  shoulders 
as  well  as  in  temperaments,  and  he  thought  a 
great  deal  of  his  new  recruit. 


22  Ramuntcho. 

Franchita,before  she  would  let  them  go,  leaned 
her  head  again  on  her  son's  neck;  then  she 
escorted  the  two  men  to  the  threshold  of  her 
door,  opened  on  the  immense  darkness, — and  re- 
cited piously  the  Pater  for  them,  while  they  went 
into  the  dark  night,  into  the  rain,  into  the  chaos 
of  the  mountains,  toward  the  obscure  frontier. — 


Ramuntcho.  23 


CHAPTER  II. 

Several  hours  later,  at  the  first  uncertain  flush 
of  dawn,  at  the  instant  when  shepherds  and 
fisherman  awake,  they  were  returning  joyously, 
the  smugglers,  having  finished  their  undertaking. 

Having  started  on  foot  and  gone,  with  infinite 
precautions  to  be  silent,  through  ravines,  through 
woods,  through  fords  of  rivers,  they  were  return- 
ing, as  if  they  were  people  who  had  never  any- 
thing to  conceal  from  anybody,  in  a  bark  of  Fon- 
tarabia,  hired  under  the  eyes  of  Spain's  custom 
house  officers,  through  the  Bidassoa  river. 

All  the  mass  of  mountains  and  of  clouds,  all 
the  sombre  chaos  of  the  preceding  night  had  dis- 
entangled itself  almost  suddenly,  as  under  the 
touch  of  a  magic  wand.  The  Pyrenees,  returned 
to  their  real  proportions,  were  only  average 
mountains,  with  slopes  bathed  in  a  shadow  still 
nocturnal,  but  with  peaks  neatly  cut  in  a  sky 
which  was  already  clearing.  The  air  had  become 
lukewarm,  suave,  exquisite,  as  if  the  climate  or 
the  season  had  suddenly  changed, — and  it  was 
the  southern  wind  which  was  beginning  to  blow, 
the  delicious  southern  wind  special  to  the  Basque 


24  Ramuntcho. 

country,  which  chases  before  it,  the  cold,  the 
clouds  and  the  mists,  which  enlivens  the  shades 
of  all  things,  makes  the  sky  blue,  prolongs  the 
horizons  infinitely  and  gives,  even  in  winter, 
summer  illusions. 

The  boatman  who  was  bringing  the  smugglers 
back  to  France  pushed  the  bottom  of  the  river 
with  his  long  pole,  and  the  bark  dragged,  half 
stranded.  At  this  moment,  that  Bidassoa  by 
which  the  two  countries  are  separated,  seemed 
drained,  and  its  antique  bed,  excessively  large, 
had  the  flat  extent  of  a  small  desert. 

The  day  was  decidedly  breaking,  tranquil  and 
slightly  pink.  It  was  the  first  of  the  month  of 
November;  on  the  Spanish  shore,  very  distant, 
in  a  monastery,  an  early  morning  bell  rang  clear, 
announcing  the  religious  solemnity  of  every 
autumn.  And  Ramuntcho,  comfortably  seated 
in  the  bark,  softly  cradled  and  rested  after  the 
fatigues  of  the  night,  breathed  the  new  breeze 
with  well-being  in  all  his  senses.  With  a  child- 
ish joy,  he  saw  the  assurance  of  a  radiant  weather 
for  that  All-Saints'  Day  which  was  to  bring  to 
him  all  that  he  knew  of  this  world's  festivals:  the 
chanted  high  mass,  the  game  of  pelota  before  the 
assembled  village,  then,  at  last,  the  dance  of  the 
evening  with  Gracieuse,  the  fandango  in  the 
moon-light  on  the  church  square. 


Ramuntcho.  25 

He  lost,  little  by  little,  the  consciousness  of 
his  physical  life,  Ramuntcho,  after  his  sleepless 
night;  a  sort  of  torpor,  benevolent  under  the 
breath  of  the  virgin  morning,  benumbed  his 
youthful  body,  leaving  his  mind  in  a  dream.  He 
knew  well  such  impressions  and  sensations,  for 
the  return  at  the  break  of  dawn,  in  the  security 
of  a  bark  where  one  sleeps,  is  the  habitual  sequel 
of  a  smuggler's  expedition. 

And  all  the  details  of  the  Bidassoa's  estuary 
were  familiar  to  him,  all  its  aspects,  which 
changed  with  the  hour,  with  the  monotonous  and 
regular  tide. — Twice  every  day  the  sea  wave 
comes  to  this  flat  bed;  then,  between  France  and 
Spain  there  is  a  lake,  a  charming  little  sea  with 
diminutive  blue  waves — and  the  barks  float,  the 
barks  go  quickly;  the  boatmen  sing  their  old- 
time  songs,  which  the  grinding  and  the  shocks 
of  the  cadenced  oars  accompany.  But  when  the 
waters  have  withdrawn,  as  at  this  moment,  there 
remains  between  the  two  countries  only  a  sort  of 
lowland,  uncertain  and  of  changing  color,  where 
walk  men  with  bare  legs,  where  barks  drag  them- 
selves, creeping. 

They  were  now  in  the  middle  of  this  lowland, 
Ramuntcho  and  his  band,  half  dozing  under  the 
dawning  light.  The  colors  of  things  began  to 
appear,  out  of  the  gray  of  night.  They  glided, 


26  Ramuntcho 

they  advanced  by  slight  jerks,  now  through  yel- 
low velvet  which  was  sand,  then  through  a  brown 
thing,  striped  regularly  and  dangerous  to  walk- 
ers, which  was  slime.  And  thousands  of  little 
puddles,  left  by  the  tide  of  the  day  before,  re- 
flected the  dawn,  shone  on  the  soft  extent  like 
mother-of-pearl  shells.  On  the  little  yellow  and 
brown  desert,  their  boatman  followed  the  course 
of  a  thin,  silver  stream,  which  represented  the 
Bidassoa  at  low  tide.  From  time  to  time,  some 
fisherman  crossed  their  path,  passed  near  them  in 
silence,  without  singing  as  the  custom  is  in  row- 
ing, too  busy  poling,  standing  in  his  bark  and 
working  his  pole  with  beautiful  plastic  gestures. 
While  they  were  day-dreaming,  they  ap- 
proached the  French  shore,  the  smugglers.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  strange  zone  which  they 
were  traversing  as  in  a  sled,  that  silhouette  of  an 
old  city,  which  fled  from  them  slowly,  was  Fon- 
tarabia;  those  highlands  which  rose  to  the  sky 
with  figures  so  harsh,  were  the  Spanish  Pyrenees. 
All  this  was  Spain,  mountainous  Spain,  eternally 
standing  there  in  the  face  of  them  and  incessant- 
ly preoccupying  their  minds:  a  country  which 
one  must  reach  in  silence,  in  dark  nights,  in 
nights  without  moonlight,  under  the  rain  of  win- 
ter; a  country  which  is  the  perpetual  aim  of  dan- 
gerous expeditions ;  a  country  which,  for  the  men 


Ramuntcho.  27 

of  Ramuntcho's  village,  seems  always  to  close 
the  southwestern  horizon,  while  it  changes  in 
appearance  according  to  the  clouds  and  the 
hours;  a  country  which  is  the  first  to  be  lighted 
by  the  pale  sun  of  mornings  and  which  masks 
afterward,  like  a  sombre  screen  the  red  sun  of 
evenings. — 

He  adored  his  Basque  land,  Ramuntcho, — and 
this  morning  was  one  of  the  times  when  this  ador- 
ation penetrated  him  more  profoundly.  In  his 
after  life,  during  his  exile,  the  reminiscence  of 
these  delightful  returns  at  dawn,  after  the  nights 
of  smuggling,  caused  in  him  an  indescribable  and 
very  anguishing  nostalgia.  But  his  love  for  the 
hereditary  soil  was  not  as  simple  as  that  of  his 
companions.  As  in  all  his  sentiments,  as  in  all 
his  sensations,  there  were  mingled  in  it  diverse 
elements.  At  first  the  instinctive  and  unanalyzed 
attachment  of  his  maternal  ancestors  to  the  native 
soil,  then  something  more  refined  coming  from 
his  father,  an  unconscious  reflection  of  the 
artistic  admiration  which  had  retained  the  stran- 
ger here  for  several  seasons  and  had  given  to  him 
the  caprice  of  allying  himself  with  a  girl  of  these 
mountains  in  order  to  obtain  a  Basque  descend- 
ance.— 


28  Ramimtcho. 


CHAPTER  III. 

It  is  eleven  o'clock  now,  and  the  bells  of 
France  and  Spain  mingle  above  the  frontier  their 
religious  festival  vibrations. 

Bathed,  rested,  and  in  Sunday  dress,  Ra- 
muntcho  was  going  with  his  mother  to  the  high 
mass  of  All-Saints'  Day.  On  the  path,  strewn 
with  reddish  leaves,  they  descended  toward  their 
parish,  under  a  warm  sun  which  gave  to  them  the 
illusion  of  summer. 

He,  dressed  in  a  manner  almost  elegant  and 
like  a  city  denizen,  save  for  the  traditional  Basque 
cap,  which  he  wore  on  the  side  and  pulled  down 
like  a  visor  over  his  childish  eyes.  She,  straight 
and  proud,  her  head  high,  her  demeanor  dis- 
tinguished, in  a  gown  of  new  form;  having  the 
air  of  a  society  woman,  except  for  the  mantilla, 
made  of  black  cloth,  which  covered  her  hair  and 
her  shoulders.  In  the  great  city  formerly  she  had 
learned  how  to  dress — and  anyway,  in  the  Basque 
country,  where  so  many  ancient  traditions  have 
been  preserved,  the  women  and  the  girls  of  the 
least  important  villages  have  all  taken  the  habit 
of  dressing  in  the  fashion  of  the  day,  with  an 


Ramuntcho.  29 

elegance  unknown  to  the  peasants  of  the  other 
French  provinces. 

They  separated,  as  etiquette  ordains,  in  the 
yard  of  the  church,  where  the  immense  cypress 
trees  smelled  of  the  south  and  the  Orient.  It 
resembled  a  mosque  from  the  exterior,  their 
parish,  with  its  tall,  old,  ferocious  walls,  pierced 
at  the  top  only  by  diminutive  windows,  with  its 
warm  color  of  antiquity,  of  dust  and  of  sun. 

While  Franchita  entered  by  one  of  the  lower 
doors,  Ramuntcho  went  up  a  venerable  stone 
stairway  which  led  one  from  the  exterior  wall  to 
the  high  tribunes  reserved  for  men. 

The  extremity  of  the  sombre  church  was  of 
dazzling  old  gold,  with  a  profusion  of  twisted 
columns,  of  complicated  entablements,  of  statues 
with  excessive  convolutions  and  with  draperies 
in  the  style  of  the  Spanish  Renaissance.  And 
this  magnificence  of  the  tabernacle  was  in  con- 
trast with  the  simplicity  of  the  lateral  walls,  simp- 
ly kalsomined.  But  an  air  of  extreme  old  age 
harmonized  these  things,  which  one  felt  were  ac- 
customed for  centuries  to  endure  in  the  face  of 
one  another. 

It  was  early  still,  and  people  were  hardly  ar- 
riving for  this  high  mass.  Leaning  on  the  railing 
of  his  tribune,  Ramuntcho  looked  at  the  women 
entering,  all  like  black  phantoms,  their  heads  and 


30  Ramuntcho. 

dress  concealed  under  the  mourning  cashmere 
which  it  is  usual  to  wear  at  church.  Silent  and 
collected,  they  glided  on  the  funereal  pavement 
of  mortuary  slabs,  where  one  could  read  still,  in 
spite  of  the  effacing  of  ages,  inscriptions  in  Eus- 
karian  tongue,  names  of  extinguished  families 
and  dates  of  past  centuries. 

Gracieuse,  whose  coming  preoccupied  Ra- 
muntcho, was  late.  But,  to  distract  his  mind  for 
a  moment,  a  "convoy"  advanced  slowly;  a  con- 
voy, that  is  a  parade  of  parents  and  nearest  neigh- 
bors of  one  who  had  died  during  the  week,  the 
men  still  draped  in  the  long  cape  which  is  worn 
at  funerals,  the  women  under  the  mantle  and  the 
traditional  hood  of  full  mourning. 

Above,  in  the  two  immense  tribunes  super- 
posed along  the  sides  of  the  nave,  the  men  came 
one  by  one  to  take  their  places,  grave  and  with 
rosaries  in  their  hands:  farmers,  laborers,  cow- 
boys, poachers  or  smugglers,  all  pious  and  ready 
to  kneel  when  the  sacred  bell  rang.  Each  one  of 
them,  before  taking  his  seat,  hooked  behind  him, 
to  a  nail  on  the  wall,  his  woolen  cap,  and  little  by 
little,  on  the  white  background  of  the  kalsomine, 
came  into  line  rows  of  innumerable  Basque  head- 
gear. 

Below,  the  little  girls  of  the  school  entered  at 
last,  in  good  order,  escorted  by  the  Sisters  of 


Ramuntcho.  31 

Saint  Mary  of  the  Rosary.  And,  among  these 
nuns,  wrapped  in  black,  Ramuntcho  recognized 
Gracieuse.  She,  too,  had  her  head  enveloped 
with  black;  her  blonde  hair,  which  to-night  would 
be  flurried  in  the  breeze  of  the  fandango,  was 
hidden  for  the  moment  under  the  austere  man- 
tilla of  the  ceremony.  Gracieuse  had  not  been 
a  scholar  for  two  years,  but  was  none  the  less  the 
intimate  friend  of  the  sisters,  her  teachers,  ever 
in  their  company  for  songs,  novenas,  or  decor- 
ations of  white  flowers  around  the  statues  of  the 
Holy  Virgin. — Then,  the  priests,  in  their  most 
sumptuous  costumes,  appeared  in  front  of  the 
magnificent  gold  of  the  tabernacle,  on  a  platform 
elevated  and  theatrical,  and  the  mass  began, 
celebrated,  in  this  distant  village,  with  excessive 
pomp  as  in  a  great  city.  There  were  choirs  of 
small  boys  chanting  in  infantile  voices  with  a 
savage  ardor.  Then  choruses  of  little  girls,  whom 
a  sister  accompanied  at  the  harmonium  and 
which  the  clear  and  fresh  voice  of  Gracieuse 
guided.  From  time  to  time  a  clamor  came,  like 
a  storm,  from  the  tribunes  above  where  the  men 
were,  a  formidable  response  animated  the  old 
vaults,  the  old  sonorous  wainscoting,  which  for 
centuries  have  vibrated  with  the  same  song. — 

To  do  the  same  things  which  for  numberless 
ages  the  ancestors  have  done  and  to  tell  blindly 


32  Ramuntcho 

the  same  words  of  faith,  are  indications  of  su- 
preme wisdom,  are  a  supreme  force.  For  all  the 
faithful  who  sang  there  came  from  this  immutable 
ceremony  of  the  mass  a  sort  of  peace,  a  confused 
but  soft  resignation  to  coming  destruction. 
Living  of  the  present  hour,  they  lost  a  little  of 
their  ephemeral  personality  to  attach  themselves 
better  to  the  dead  lying  under  the  slabs  and  to 
continue  them  more  exactly,  to  form  with  them 
and  their  future  descendants  only  one  of  these 
resisting  entireties,  of  almost  infinite  duration, 
which  is  called  a  race. 


Ramuntcho.  33 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  Ite  missa  est!"  The  high  mass  is  finished 
and  the  antique  church  is  emptying.  Outside,  in 
the  yard,  among  the  tombs,  the  assistants  scatter. 
And  all  the  joy  of  a  sunny  noon  greets  them,  as 
they  come  out  of  the  sombre  nave  where  each, 
according  to  his  naive  faculties,  had  caught  more 
or  less  a  glimpse  of  the  great  mystery  and  of  the 
inevitable  death. 

Wearing  all  the  uniform  national  cap,  the  men 
come  down  the  exterior  stairway;  the  womenj 
slower  to  be  captivated  by  the  lure  of  the  blue 
sky,  retaining  still  under  the  mourning  veil  a 
little  of  the  dream  of  the  church,  come  out  of  the 
lower  porticoes  in  black  troops;  around  a  grave 
freshly  closed,  some  stop  and  weep. 

The  southern  wind,  which  is  the  great  magician 
of  the  Basque  country,  blows  softly.  The  autumn 
of  yesterday  has  gone  and  it  is  forgotten.  Luke- 
warm breaths  pass  through  the  air,  vivifying, 
healthier  than  those  of  May,  having  the  odor  of 
hay  and  the  odor  of  flowers.  Two  singers  of  the 
highway  are  there,  leaning  on  the  graveyard  wall, 
and  they  intone,  with  a  tambourine  and  a  guitar. 


24  Ramuntcho. 

an  old  seguidilla  of  Spain,  bringing  here  the  warm 
and  somewhat  Arabic  gaieties  of  the  lands  beyond 
the  frontiers. 

And  in  the  midst  of  all  this  intoxication  of  the 
southern  November,  more  delicious  in  this 
country  than  the  intoxication  of  the  spring,  Ra- 
muntcho, having  come  down  one  of  the  first, 
watches  the  coming  out  of  the  sisters  in  order  to 
greet  Gracieuse. 

The  sandal  peddler  has  come  also  to  this  clos- 
ing of  the  mass,  and  displays  among  the  roses  of 
the  tombs  his  linen  foot  coverings  ornamented 
with  woolen  flowers.  Young  men,  attracted  by 
the  dazzling  embroideries,  gather  around  him  to 
select  colors. 

The  bees  and  the  flies  buzz  as  in  June;  the 
country  has  become  again,  for  a  few  hours,  for  a 
few  days,  for  as  long  as  this  wind  will  blow, 
luminous  and  warm.  In  front  of  the  mountains, 
which  have  assumed  violent  brown  or  sombre 
green  tints,  and  which  seem  to  have  advanced 
to-day  until  they  overhang  the  church,  houses  of 
the  village  appear  in  relief,  very  neat,  very  white 
under  their  coat  of  kalsomine, — old  Pyrenean 
houses  with  their  wooden  balconies  and  on  their 
walls  intercrossings  of  beams  in  the  fashion  of 
the  olden  time.  In  the  southwest,  the  visible 
portion  of  Spain,  the  denuded  and  red  peak 


Ramuntcho.  35 

familiar  to  smugglers,  stands  straight  and  near 
in  the  beautiful  clear  sky. 

Gracieuse  does  not  appear  yet,  retarded  doubt- 
less by  the  nuns  in  some  altar  service.  As  for 
Franchita,  who  never  mingles  in  the  Sunday 
festivals,  she  takes  the  path  to  her  house,  silent 
and  haughty,  after  a  smile  to  her  son,  whom  she 
will  not  see  again  until  to-night  after  the  dances 
have  come  to  an  end. 

A  group  of  young  men,  among  whom  is  the 
vicar  who  has  just  taken  off  his  golden  orna- 
ments, forms  itself  at  the  threshold  of  the  church, 
in  the  sun,  and  seems  to  be  plotting  grave  pro- 
jects.— They  are  the  great  players  of  the  country, 
the  fine  flower  of  the  lithe  and  the  strong;  it  is  for 
the  pelota  game  of  the  afternoon  that  they  are 
consulting,  and  they  make  a  sign  to  Ramuntcho 
who  pensively  comes  to  them.  Several  old  men 
come  also  and  surround  them,  caps  crushed  on 
white  hair  and  faces  clean  shaven  like  those  of 
monks :  champions  of  the  olden  time,  still  proud 
of  their  former  successes,  and  sure  that  their 
counsel  shall  be  respected  in  the  national  game, 
which  the  men  here  attend  with  pride  as  on  a  field 
of  honor. — After  a  courteous  discussion,  the 
game  is  arranged;  it  will  be  immediately  after 
vespers;  they  will  play  the  "blaid"  with  the  wicker 
glove,  and  the  six  selected  champions,  divided  in- 


36  Ramuntcho. 

to  two  camps,  shall  be  the  vicar,  Ramuntcho  and 
Arrochkoa,  Gracieuse's  brother,  against  three 
famous  men  of  the  neighboring  villages :  Joachim 
of  Mendiazpi;  Florentine  of  Espelette,  and  Ir- 
rubeta  of  Hasparren — 

Now  comes  the  "convoy",  which  comes  out  of 
the  church  and  passes  by  them,  so  black  in  this 
feast  of  light,  and  so  archaic,  with  the  envelope 
of  its  capes,  of  its  caps  and  of  its  veils.  They  are 
expressive  of  the  Middle  Age,  these  people,  while 
they  pass  in  a  file,  the  Middle  Age  whose  shadow 
the  Basque  country  retains.  And  they  express, 
above  all,  death,  as  the  large  funereal  slabs,  with 
which  the  nave  is  paved,  express  it,  as  the  cypress 
trees  and  the  tombs  express  it,  and  all  the  things 
in  this  place,  where  the  men  come  to  pray,  ex- 
press it:  death,  always  death. — But  a  death  very 
softly  neighboring  life,  under  the  shield  of  the  old 
consoling  symbols — for  life  is  there  marked  also, 
almost  equally  sovereign,  in  the  warm  rays  which 
light  up  the  cemetery,  in  the  eyes  of  the  children 
who  play  among  the  roses  of  autumn,  in  the  smile 
of  those  beautiful  brown  girls  who,  the  mass  be- 
ing finished,  return  with  steps  indolently  supple 
toward  the  village;  in  the  muscles  of  all  this 
youthfulness  of  men,  alert  and  vigorous,  who 
shall  soon  exercise  at  the  ball-game  their  iron 
legs  and  arms. — And  of  this  group  of  old  men 


Ramuntcho.  37 

and  of  boys  at  the  threshold  of  a  church,  of  this 
mingling,  so  peacefully  harmonious,  of  death  and 
of  life,  comes  the  benevolent  lesson,  the  teaching 
that  one  must  enjoy  in  time  strength  and  love; 
then,  without  obstinacy  in  enduring,  submit  to 
the  universal  law  of  passing  and  dying,  repeating 
with  confidence,  like  these  simple-minded  and 
wise  men,  the  same  prayers  by  which  the  agonies 
of  the  ancestors  were  cradled. — 

It  is  improbably  radiant,  the  sun  of  noon  in 
this  yard  of  the  dead.  The  air  is  exquisite  and 
one  becomes  intoxicated  by  breathing  it.  The 
Pyrenean  horizons  have  been  swept  of  their 
clouds,  their  least  vapors,  and  it  seems  as  if  the 
wind  of  the  south  had  brought  here  the  limpidi- 
ties of  Andalusia  or  of  Africa. 

The  Basque  guitar  and  tambourine  accompany 
the  sung  seguilla,  which  the  beggars  of  Spain 
throw  like  a  slight  irony  into  this  lukewarm 
breeze,  above  the  dead.  And  boys  and  girls 
think  of  the  fandango  of  to-night,  feel  ascending 
in  them  the  desire  and  the  intoxication  of 
dancing. — 

At  last  here  come  the  sisters,  so  long  expected 
by  Ramuntcho ;  with  them  advance  Gracieuse  and 
her  mother,  Dolores,  who  is  still  in  widow's 
weeds,  her  face  invisible  under  a  black  cape  closed 
by  a  crape  veil. 


38  Ramuntcho. 

What  can  this  Dolores  be  plotting  with  the 
Mother  Superior? — Ramuntcho,  knowing  that 
these  two  women  are  enemies,  is  astonished  and 
disquiet  to-day  to  see  them  walk  side  by  side. 
Now  they  even  stop  to  talk  aside,  so  important 
and  secret  doubtless  is  what  they  are  saying; 
their  similar  black  caps,  overhanging  like  wagon- 
hoods,  touch  each  other  and  they  talk  sheltered 
under  them;  a  whispering  of  phantoms,  one 
would  say,  under  a  sort  of  little  black  vault. — 
And  Ramuntcho  has  the  sentiment  of  something 
hostile  plotted  against  him  tinder  these  two 
wicked  caps. 

When  the  colloquy  comes  to  an  end,  he  ad- 
vances, touches  his  cap  for  a  salute,  awkward  and 
timid  suddenly  in  presence  of  this  Dolores,  whose 
harsh  look  under  the  veil  he  divines.  This 
woman  is  the  only  person  in  the  world  who  has 
the  power  to  chill  him,  and,  never  elsewhere  than 
in  her  presence,  he  feels  weighing  upon  him  the 
blemish  of  being  the  child  of  an  unknown  father, 
of  wearing  no  other  name  than  that  of  his  mother. 

To-day,  however,  to  his  great  surprise,  she  is 
more  cordial  than  usual,  and  she  says  with  a  voice 
almost  amiable:  "Good-morning,  my  boy!" 
Then  he  goes  to  Gracieuse,  to  ask  her  with  a 
brusque  anxiety:  "To-night,  at  eight  o'clock, 
sav  if  you  will  be  on  the  square  to  dance  with 
me?" 


Ramuntcho.  39 

For  some  time,  every  Sunday  had  brought  to 
him  the  same  fear  of  being  deprived  of  dancing 
v/ith  her  in  the  evening.  In  the  week  he  hardly 
ever  saw  her.  Now  that  he  was  becoming  a  man, 
the  only  occasion  for  him  to  have  her  company 
was  this  ball  on  the  green  of  the  square,  in  the 
light  of  the  stars  or  of  the  moon. 

They  had  fallen  in  love  with  each  other  five 
years  ago,  Ramuntcho  and  Gracieuse,  when  they 
were  still  children.  And  such  loves,  when  by 
chance  the  awakening  of  the  senses  confirms  in- 
stead of  destroying  them,  become  in  young  heads 
something  sovereign  and  exclusive. 

They  had  never  thought  of  saying  this  to  each 
other,  they  knew  it  so  well ;  never  had  they  talked 
together  of  the  future  which  did  not  appear  pos- 
sible to  one  without  the  other.  And  the  isolation 
of  this  mountain  village  where  they  lived,  perhaps 
also  the  hostility  of  Dolores  to  their  naive,  un- 
expressed projects,  brought  them  more  closely 
together — 

"  To-night,  at  eight  o'clock,  say  if  you  will  be 
on  the  square  to  dance  with  me?  " 

"  Yes — "replies  the  little  girl,  fixing  on  her 
friend  eyes  of  sadness,  a  little  frightened,  as  well 
as  of  ardent  tenderness. 

"  Sure?  "  asked  Ramuntcho  again,  whom  these 
eyes  make  anxious. 


4O  Ramuntcho. 

"Yes,  sure!" 

So,  he  is  quieted  again  this  time,  knowing  that 
if  Gracieuse  has  said  and  decided  something  one 
may  count  on  it.  And  at  once  the  weather  seems 
to  him  more  beautiful,  the  Sunday  more  amusing, 
life  more  charming — 

The  dinner  hour  calls  the  Basques  now  to  the 
houses  or  to  the  inns,  and,  under  the  light,  some- 
what gloomy,  of  the  noon  sun,  the  village  seems 
deserted. 

Ramuntcho  goes  to  the  cider  mill  which  the 
smugglers  and  pelota  players  frequent.  There, 
he  sits  at  a  table,  his  cap  still  drawn  over  his  eyes, 
with  his  friends:  Arrochkoa,  two  or  three  others 
of  the  mountains  and  the  somber  Itchoua,  their 
chief. 

A  festive  meal  is  prepared  for  them,  with  fish 
of  the  Nivelle,  ham  and  hares.  In  the  foreground 
of  the  hall,  vast  and  dilapidated,  near  the  win- 
dows, are  the  tables,  the  oak  benches  on  which 
they  are  seated;  in  the  background,  in  a  penum- 
bra, are  the  enormous  casks  filled  with  new  cider. 

In  this  band  of  Ramuntcho,  which  is  there  en- 
tire, under  the  piercing  eye  of  its  chief,  reigns  an 
emulation  of  audacity  and  a  reciprocal,  fraternal 
devotion ;  during  their  night  expeditions  especial- 
ly, they  are  all  one  to  live  or  to  die. 

Leaning  heavily,  benumbed  in  the  pleasure  of 


Ramuntcho.  41 

resting  after  the  fatigues  of  the  night  and  con- 
centrated in  the  expectation  of  satiating  their 
robust  hunger,  they  are  silent  at  first,  hardly 
raising  their  heads  to  look  through  the  window- 
panes  at  the  passing  girls.  Two  are  very  young, 
almost  children  like  Ramuntcho :  Arrochkoa  and 
Florentine.  The  others  have,  like  Itchoua, 
hardened  faces,  eyes  in  ambuscade  under  the 
frontal  arcade,  expressing  no  certain  age;  their 
aspect  reveals  a  past  of  fatigues,  in  the  unreason- 
able obstinacy  to  pursue  this  trade  of  smuggling; 
which  hardly  gives  bread  to  the  less  skilful. 

Then,  awakened  little  by  little  by  the  smoking 
dishes,  by  the  sweet  cider,  they  talk;  soon  their 
words  interlace,  light,  rapid  and  sonorous,  with 
an  excessive  rolling  of  the  r.  They  talk  in  their 
mysterious  language,  the  origin  of  which  is  un- 
known and  which  seems  to  the  men  of  the  other 
countries  in  Europe  more  distant  than  Mongo- 
lian or  Sanskrit.  They  tell  stories  of  the  night 
and  of  the  frontier,  stratagems  newly  invented 
and  astonishing  deceptions  of  Spanish  carbine- 
ers. Itchoua,  the  chief,  listens  more  than  he 
talks;  one  hears  only  at  long  intervals  his  pro- 
found voice  of  a  church  singer  vibrate.  Arroch- 
koa, the  most  elegant  of  all,  is  in  striking  con- 
trast with  his  comrades  of  the  mountain.  (His 
name  was  Jean  Detcharry,  but  he  was  known 


42  Ramuntcho. 

only  by  his  surname,  which  the  elders  of  his 
family  transmitted  from  father  to  son  for  centu- 
ries.) A  smuggler  for  his  pleasure,  he,  without 
any  necessity,  and  possessing  beautiful  lands  in 
the  sunlight;  the  face  fresh  and  pretty,  the  blonde 
mustache  turned  up  in  the  fashion  of  cats,  the 
eye  feline  also,  the  eye  caressing  and  fleeting;  at- 
tracted by  all  that  succeeds,  by  all  that  amuses, 
by  all  that  shines;  liking  Ramuntcho  for  his 
triumphs  in  the  ball-game,  and  quite  disposed  to 
give  to  him  the  hand  of  his  sister,  Gracieuse,  even 
if  it  were  only  to  oppose  his  mother,  Dolores. 
And  Florentine,  the  other  great  friend  of  Ra- 
muntcho is,  on  the  contrary,  the  humblest  of  the 
band;  an  athletic,  reddish  fellow,  with  wide  and 
low  forehead,  with  good  eyes  of  resignation,  soft 
as  those  of  beasts  of  burden;  without  father  or 
mother,  possessing  nothing  in  the  world  except 
a  threadbare  costume  and  three  pink  cotton 
shirts;  unique  lover  of  a  little  fifteen  year  old 
orphan,  as  poor  as  he  and  as  primitive. 

At  last  Itchoua  deigns  to  talk  in  his  turn.  He 
relates,  in  a  tone  of  mystery  and  of  confidence, 
a  certain  tale  of  the  time  of  his  youth,  in  a  black 
night,  on  the  Spanish  territory,  in  the  gorges  of 
Andarlaza.  Seized  by  two  carbineers  at  the  turn 
in  a  dark  path,  he  had  disengaged  himself  by 
drawing  his  knife  to  stab  a  chest  with  it:  half  a 


Ramuntcho.  43 

second,  a  resisting  flesh,  then,  crack!  the  blade 
entering  brusquely,  a  jet  of  warm  blood  on  his 
hand,  the  man  fallen,  and  he,  fleeing  in  the  ob- 
scure rocks — 

And  the  voice  which  says  these  things  with 
implacable  tranquility,  is  the  same  which  for 
years  sings  piously  every  Sunday  the  liturgy  in 
the  old  sonorous  church, — so  much  so  that  it 
seems  to  retain  a  religious  and  almost  sacred 
character! — 

"  When  you  are  caught " — adds  the  speaker, 
scrutinizing  them  all  with  his  eyes,  become  pier- 
cing again — "When  you  are  caught — What  is 
the  life  of  a  man  worth  in  such  a  case?  You 
would  not  hesitate,  either,  I  suppose,  if  you  were 
caught — ?  " 

"  Sure  not,"  replied  Arrochkoa,  in  a  tone  of 
infantile  bravado,  "  Sure  not!  In  such  a  case  to 
take  the  life  of  a  carabinero  no  one  would  hesi- 
tate!—" 

The  debonair  Florentino,  turned  from  Itchoua 
his  disapproving  eyes.  Florentino  would  hesi- 
tate; he  would  not  kill.  This  is  divined  in  the 
expression  of  his  face. 

"  You  would  not  hesitate,"  repeated  Itchoua, 
scrutinizing  Ramuntcho  this  time  in  a  special 
manner;  "you  would  not  hesitate,  either,  I  sup- 
pose, if  you  were  caught,  would  you?  " 


44  Ramuntcho. 

"  Surely,"  replied  Ramuntcho,  submissively. 
"Oh,  no,  surely—" 

But  his  look,  like  that  of  Florentine,  has 
turned  from  Itchoua.  A  terror  comes  to  him 
of  this  man,  of  this  imperious  and  cold  influence, 
so  completely  felt  already;  an  entire  soft  and  re- 
fined side  of  his  nature  is  awakened,  made  dis- 
quiet and  in  revolt. 

Silence  has  followed  the  tale,  and  Itchoua,  dis- 
contented with  the  effect  of  it,  proposes  a  song  in 
order  to  change  the  course  of  ideas. 

The  purely  material  well-being  which  comes 
after  dinner,  the  cider  which  has  been  drunk,  the 
cigarettes  which  are  lighted  and  the  songs  that 
begin,  bring  back  quickly  confident  joy  in  these 
children's  heads.  And  then,  there  are  in  the 
band  the  two  brothers  Iragola,  Marcos  and 
Joachim,  young  men  of  the  mountain  above 
Mendiazpi,  who  are  renowned  extemporary 
speakers  in  the  surrounding  country  and  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  hear  them,  on  any  subject,  compose 
and  sing  verses  which  are  so  pretty. 

"  Let  us  see",  says  Itchoua,  "you,  Marcos,  are 
a  sailor  who  wishes  to  pass  his  life  on  the  ocean 
and  seek  fortune  in  America;  you,  Joachim,  are 
a  farm  hand  who  prefers  not  to  quit  his  village 
and  his  soil  here.  Each  of  you  will  discuss  al- 
ternately, in  couplets  of  equal  length,  the  pleas- 


Ramuntcho.  45 

ures  of  his  trade  to  the  tune — to  the  tune  of  the 
'Iru  Damacho'.  Go  on." 

They  looked  at  each  other,  the  two  brothers; 
half  turned  toward  each  other  on  the  oak  bench 
where  they  sit;  an  instant  of  reflection,  during 
which  an  imperceptible  agitation  of  the  eyelids 
alone  betrays  the  working  of  their  minds;  then, 
brusquely  Marcos,  the  elder,  begins,  and  they 
will  never  stop.  With  their  shaven  cheeks,  their 
handsome  profiles,  their  chins  which  advance 
somewhat  imperiously  above  the  powerful 
muscles  of  the  neck,  they  recall,  in  their  grave 
immobility,  the  figures  engraved  on  the  Roman 
medals.  They  sing  with  a  certain  effort  of  the 
throat,  like  the  muezzins  in  the  mosques,  in  high 
tones.  When  one  has  finished  his  couplet,  with- 
out a  second  of  hesitation  or  silence,  the  other 
begins;  more  and  more  their  minds  are  animated 
and  inflamed.  Around  the  smugglers'  table 
many  other  caps  have  gathered  and  all  listen 
with  admiration  to  the  witty  or  sensible  things 
which  the  two  brothers  know  how  to  say,  ever 
with  the  needed  cadence  and  rhyme. 

At  the  twentieth  stanza,  at  last,  Itchoua  inter- 
rupts them  to  make  them  rest  and  he  orders  more 
cider. 

"  How  have  you  learned?  "  asked  Ramuntcho 
of  the  Iragola  brothers.  "  How  did  the  knack 
come  to  you?  " 


46  Ramuntcho. 

"Oh ! "  replies  Marcos,  "it  is  a  family  trait,  as 
you  must  know.  Our  father,  our  grandfather 
were  extemporary  composers  who  were  heard 
with  pleasure  in  all  the  festivals  of  the  Basque 
country,  and  our  mother  also  was  the  daughter 
of  a  grand  improvisator  of  the  village  of  Lesaca. 
And  then,  every  evening  in  taking  back  the  oxen 
or  in  milking  the  cows,  we  practice,  or  at  the 
fireside  on  winter  nights.  Yes,  every  evening. 
we  make  compositions  in  this  way  on  subjects 
which  one  of  us  imagines,  and  it  is  our  greatest 
pleasure — " 

But  when  Florentine's  turn  to  sing  comes  he, 
knowing  only  the  old  refrains  of  the  mountain, 
intones  in  an  Arabic  falsetto  voice  the  complaint 
of  the  linen  weaver;  and  then  Ramuntcho,  who 
had  sung  it  the  day  before  in  the  autumn  twilight, 
sees  again  the  darkened  sky  of  yesterday,  the 
clouds  full  of  rain,  the  cart  drawn  by  oxen  going 
down  into  a  sad  and  closed  valley,  toward  a 
solitary  farm — and  suddenly  the  unexplained 
anguish  returns  to  him,  the  one  which  he  had 
before;  the  fear  of  living  and  of  passing  thus  al- 
ways in  these  same  villages,  under  the  oppression 
of  these  same  mountains;  the  notion  and  the  con- 
fused desire  for  other  places ;  the  anxiety  for  un- 
known distances — His  eyes,  become  lifeless  and 
fixed,  look  inwardly;  for  several  strange  minutes 


Ramuntcho.  47 

he  feels  that  he  is  an  exile,  from  what  country  he 
does  not  know,  disinherited,  of  what  he  does  not 
know,  sad  in  the  depths  of  his  soul ;  between  him 
and  the  men  who  surround  him  have  come  sud- 
denly irreducible,  hereditary  barriers — 

Three  o'clock.  It  is  the  hour  when  vespers, 
the  last  office  of  the  day,  comes  to  an  end;  the 
hour  when  leave  the  church,  in  a  meditation 
grave  as  that  of  the  morning,  all  the  mantillas  of 
black  cloth  concealing  the  beautiful  hair  of  the 
girls  and  the  form  of  their  waists,  all  the  woolen 
caps  similarly  lowered  on  the  shaven  faces  of 
men,  on  their  eyes  piercing  or  somber,  still 
plunged  in  the  old  time  dreams. 

It  is  the  hour  when  the  games  are  to  begin,  the 
dances,  the  pelota  and  the  fandango.  All  this  is 
traditional  and  immutable. 

The  light  of  the  day  becomes  more  golden, 
one  feels  the  approach  of  night.  The  church, 
suddenly  empty,  forgotten,  where  persists  the 
odor  of  incense,  becomes  full  of  silence,  and  the 
old  gold  of  the  background  shines  mysteriously 
in  the  midst  of  more  shade;  silence  also  is  scat- 
tered around  on  the  tranquil  enclosure  of  the 
dead,  where  the  folks  this  time  passed  without 
stopping,  in  their  haste  to  go  elsewhere. 

On  the  square  of  the  ball-game,  people  are 
beginning  to  arrive  from  everywhere,  from  the 


48  Ramuntcho. 

village  itself  and  from  the  neighboring  hamlets, 
from  the  huts  of  the  shepherds  or  of  the  smugg- 
lers who  perch  above,  on  the  harsh  mountains. 
Hundreds  of  Basque  caps,  all  similar,  are  now 
reunited,  ready  to  judge  the  players,  to  applaud 
or  to  murmur;  they  discuss  the  chances,  com- 
ment upon  the  relative  strength  of  the  players 
and  make  big  bets  of  money.  And  young  girls, 
young  women  gather  also,  having  nothing  of 
the  awkwardness  of  the  peasants  in  other  pro- 
vinces of  France,  elegant,  refined,  graceful  in 
costumes  of  the  new  fashions;  some  wearing  on 
their  hair  the  silk  kerchief,  rolled  and  arranged 
like  a  small  cap;  others  bareheaded,  their  hair 
dressed  in  the  most  modern  manner;  most  of 
them  pretty,  with  admirable  eyes  and  very  long 
eyebrows — This  square,  always  solemn  and 
ordinarily  somewhat  sad,  is  filled  to-day,  Sunday, 
with  a  lively  and  gay  crowd. 

The  most  insignificant  hamlet  in  the  Basque 
country  has  a  square  for  the  ball-game,  large, 
carefully  kept,  in  general  near  the  church,  under 
oaks. 

But  here,  this  is  a  central  point  and  something 
like  the  Conservatory  of  French  ball-players,  of 
those  who  become  celebrated,  in  South  America 
as  well  as  in  the  Pyrenees,  and  who,  in  the  great 
international  games,  oppose  the  champions  of 


Ramuntcho.  49 

Spain.  So  the  place  is  particularly  beautiful  and 
pompous,  surprising  in  so  distant  a  village.  It 
is  paved  with  large  stones,  between  which  grass 
grows  expressing  its  antiquity  and  giving  to  it 
an  air  of  being  abandoned.  On  the  two  sides 
are  extended,  for  the  spectators,  long  benches — 
made  of  the  red  granite  of  the  neighboring  moun- 
tain and,  at  this  moment,  all  overgrown  with 
autumn  scabwort. 

And  in  the  back,  the  old  monumental  wall  rises, 
against  which  the  balls  will  strike.  It  has  a 
rounded  front  which  seems  to  be  the  silhouette 
of  a  dome  and  bears  this  inscription,  half  effaced 
by  time :  "  Blaidka  haritzea  debakatua."  (The 
blaid  game  is  forbidden.) 

Still,  the  day's  game  is  to  be  the  blaid;  but  the 
venerable  inscription  dates  from  the  time  of  the 
splendor  of  the  national  game,  degenerated  at 
present,  as  all  things  degenerate.  It  had  been 
placed  there  to  preserve  the  tradition  of  the 
"  rebot ",  a  more  difficult  game,  exacting  more 
agility  and  strength,  and  which  has  been  per- 
petuated only  in  the  Spanish  province  of 
Guipuzcoa. 

While  the  graded  benches  are  filling  up,  the 
paved  square,  which  the  grass  makes  green,  and 
which  has  seen  the  lithe  and  the  vigorous  men 
of  the  country  run  since  the  days  of  old,  remains 


50  Ramuntcho. 

empty.  The  beautiful  autumn  sun,  at  its  decline, 
warms  and  lights  it.  Here  and  there  some  tall 
oaks  shed  their  leaves  above  the  seated  specta- 
tors. Beyond  are  the  high  church  and  the 
cypress  trees,  the  entire  sacred  corner,  from 
which  the  saints  and  the  dead  seem  to  be  looking 
at  a  distance,  protecting  the  players,  interested 
in  this  game  which  is  the  passion  still  of  an  en- 
tire race  and  characterises  it — 

At  last  they  enter  the  arena,  the  Pelotaris,  the 
six  champions  among  whom  is  one  in  a  cassock : 
the  vicar  of  the  parish.  With  him  are  some 
other  personages:  the  crier,  who,  in  an  instant, 
will  sing  the  points;  the  five  judges,  selected 
among  the  experts  of  different  villages  to  inter- 
vene in  cases  of  litigation,  and  some  others  car- 
rying extra  balls  and  sandals.  At  the  right 
wrist  the  players  attach  with  thongs  a  strange 
wicker  thing  resembling  a  large,  curved  finger- 
nail which  lengthens  the  forearm  by  half.  It  is 
with  this  glove  (manufactured  in  France  by  a 
unique  basket-maker  of  the  village  of  Ascain) 
that  they  will  have  to  catch,  throw  and  hurl  the 
pelota, — a  small  ball  of  tightened  cord  covered 
with  sheepskin,  which  is  as  hard  as  a  wooden 
ball. 

Now  they  try  the  balls,  selecting  the  best, 
limbering,  with  a  few  points  that  do  not  count, 


Ramuntcho.  5 1 

their  athletic  arms.  Then,  they  take  off  their 
waistcoats  and  carry  them  to  preferred  spectators ; 
Ramuntcho  gives  his  to  Gracieuse,  seated  in  the 
first  row  on  the  lower  bench.  And  all,  except 
the  priest,  who  will  play  in  his  black  gown,  are  in 
battle  array,  their  chests  at  liberty  in  pink  cotton 
shirts  or  light  thread  fleshings. 

The  assistants  know  them  well,  these  players; 
in  a  moment,  they  shall  be  excited  for  or  against 
them  and  will  shout  at  them,  frantically,  as  it 
happens  with  the  toreadors. 

At  this  moment  the  village  is  entirely  animated 
by  the  spirit  of  the  olden  time ;  in  its  expectation 
of  the  pleasure,  in  its  liveliness,  in  its  ardor,  it  is 
intensely  Basque  and  very  old, — under  the  great 
shade  of  the  Gizune,  the  overhanging  mountain, 
which  throws  over  it  a  twilight  charm. 

And  the  game  begins  in  the  melancholy  even- 
ing. The  ball,  thrown  with  much  strength,  flies, 
strikes  the  wall  in  great,  quick  blows,  then  re- 
bounds, and  traverses  the  air  with  the  rapidity 
of  a  bullet. 

This  wall  in  the  background,  rounded  like  a 
dome's  festoon  on  the  sky,  has  become  little  by 
little  crowned  with  heads  of  children, — little  Bas- 
ques, little  cats,  ball-players  of  the  future,  who 
soon  will  precipitate  themselves  like  a  flight  of 
birds,  to  pick  up  the  ball  every  time  when. 


52  Ramuntcho. 

thrown  too  high,  it  will  go  beyond  the  square 
and  fall  in  the  fields. 

The  game  becomes  gradually  warmer  as  arms 
and  legs  are  limbered,  in  an  intoxication  of  move- 
ment and  swiftness.  Already  Ramuntcho  is  ac- 
claimed. And  the  vicar  also  shall  be  one  of  the 
fine  players  of  the  day,  strange  to  look  upon  with 
his  leaps  similar  to  those  of  a  cat,  and  his  athletic 
gestures,  imprisoned  in  his  priest's  gown. 

This  is  the  rule  of  the  game:  when  one  of  the 
champions  of  the  two  camps  lets  the  ball  fall,  it 
is  a  point  earned  by  the  adverse  camp, — and 
ordinarily  the  limit  is  sixty  points.  After  each 
point,  the  titled  crier  chants  with  a  full  voice  in 
his  old  time  tongue:  "  The  but  has  so  much,  the 
refil  has  so  much,  gentlemen!  "  (The  but  is  the 
camp  which  played  first,  the  refil  is  the  camp  op- 
posed to  the  but.)  And  the  crier's  long  clamor 
drags  itself  above  the  noise  of  the  crowd,  which 
approves  or  murmurs. 

On  the  square,  the  zone  gilt  and  reddened  by 
the  sun  diminishes,  goes,  devoured  by  the  shade; 
more  and  more  the  great  screen  of  the  Gizune 
predominates  over  everything,  seems  to  enclose 
in  this  little  corner  of  the  world  at  its  feet,  the 
very  special  life  and  the  ardor  of  these  moun- 
taineers— who  are  the  fragments  of  a  people 
very  mysteriously  unique,  without  analogy 


Ramuntcho.  53 

among  nations — The  shade  of  night  marches 
forward  and  invades  in  silence,  soon  it  will  be 
sovereign;  in  the  distance  only  a  few  summits 
still  lighted  above  so  many  darkened  valleys,  are 
of  a  violet  luminous  and  pink. 

Ramuntcho  plays  as,  in  his  life,  he  had  never 
played  before ;  he  is  in  one  of  those  instants  when 
one  feels  tempered  by  strength,  light,  weighing 
nothing,  and  when  it  is  a  pure  joy  to  move,  to 
extend  one's  arms,  to  leap.  But  Arrochkoa 
weakens,  the  vicar  is  fettered  two  or  three  times 
by  his  black  cassock,  and  the  adverse  camp,  at 
first  distanced,  little  by  little  catches  up,  then,  in 
presence  of  this  game  so  valiantly  disputed, 
clamor  redoubles  and  caps  fly  in  the  air,  thrown 
by  enthusiastic  hands. 

Now  the  points  are  equal  on  both  sides;  the 
crier  announces  thirty  for  each  one  of  the  rival 
camps  and  he  sings  the  old  refrain  which  is  of 
tradition  immemorial  in  such  cases:  "Let  bets 
come  forward!  Give  drink  to  the  judges  and  to 
the  players."  It  is  the  signal  for  an  instant  of 
rest,  while  wine  shall  be  brought  into  the  arena 
at  the  cost  of  the  village.  The  players  sit  down, 
and  Ramuntcho  takes  a  place  beside  Gracieuse, 
who  throws  on  his  shoulders,  wet  with  perspir- 
ation, the  waistcoat  which  she  was  keeping  for 
him.  Then  he  asks  of  his  little  friend  to  undo 


54  Ramuntcho. 

the  thongs  which  hold  the  glove  of  wood,  wicker 
and  leather  on  his  reddened  arm.  And  he  rests 
in  the  pride  of  his  success,  seeing  only  smiles  of 
greeting  on  the  faces  of  the  girls  at  whom  he 
looks.  But  he  sees  also,  on  the  side  opposed  to 
the  players'  wall,  on  the  side  of  the  approaching 
darkness,  the  archaic  assemblage  of  Basque 
houses,  the  little  square  of  the  village  with  its 
kalsomined  porches  and  its  old  plane-trees,  then 
the  old,  massive  belfry  of  the  church,  and,  higher 
than  everything,  dominating  everything,  crush- 
ing everything,  the  abrupt  mass  of  the  Gizune 
from  which  comes  so  much  shade,  from  which 
descends  on  this  distant  village  so  hasty  an  im- 
pression of  night — Truly  it  encloses  too  much, 
that  mountain,  it  imprisons,  it  impresses — And 
Ramuntcho,  in  his  juvenile  triumph,  is  troubled 
by  the  sentiment  of  this,  by  this  furtive  and  vague 
attraction  of  other  places  so  often  mingled  with 
his  troubles  and  with  his  joys — 

The  game  continues  and  his  thoughts  are  lost 
in  the  physical  intoxication  of  beginning  the 
struggle  again.  From  instant  to  instant,  clack! 
the  snap  of  the  pelotas,  their  sharp  noise  against 
the  glove  which  throws  them  or  the  wall  which 
receives  them,  their  same  noise  giving  the  notion 
of  all  the  strength  displayed — Clack!  it  will  snap 
till  the  hour  of  twilight,  the  pelota,  animated 


Ramuntcho.  55 

furiously  by  arms  powerful  and  young.  At  times 
the  players,  with  a  terrible  shock,  stop  it  in  its 
flight,  with  a  shock  that  would  break  other  mus- 
cles than  theirs.  Most  often,  sure  of  themselves,  they 
let  it  quietly  touch  the  soil,  almost  die:  it  seems 
as  if  they  would  never  catch  it :  and  clack !  it  goes 
off,  however,  caught  just  in  time,  thanks  to  a 
marvellous  precision  of  the  eye,  and  strikes  the 
wall,  ever  with  the  rapidity  of  a  bullet — When  it 
wanders  on  the  benches,  on  the  mass  of  woolen 
caps  and  of  pretty  hair  ornamented  with  silk  ker- 
chiefs, all  the  heads  then,  all  the  bodies,  are  lower- 
ed as  if  moved  by  the  wind  of  its  passage:  for  it 
must  not  be  touched,  it  must  not  be  stopped,  as 
long  as  it  is  living  and  may  still  be  caught;  then, 
when  it  is  really  lost,  dead,  some  one  of  the  as- 
sistants does  himself  he  honor  to  pick  it  up  and 
throw  it  back  to  the  players. 

The  night  falls,  falls,  the  last  golden  colors 
scatter  with  serene  melancholy  over  the  highest 
summits  of  the  Basque  country.  In  the  deserted 
church,  profound  silence  is  established  and  an- 
tique images  regard  one  another  alone  through 
the  invasion  of  night — Oh !  the  sadness  of  ends  of 
festivals,  in  very  isolated  villages,  as  soon  as  the 
sun  sets! — 

Meanwhile  Ramuntcho  is  more  and  more  the 
great  conqueror.  And  the  plaudits,  the  cries,  re- 


56  Ramuntcho. 

double  his  happy  boldness;  each  time  he  makes  a 
point  the  men,  standing  now  on  the  old,  graded, 
granite  benches,  acclaim  him  with  southern  fury. 

The  last  point,  the  sixtieth — It  is  Ramuntcho's 
and  he  has  won  the  game! 

Then  there  is  a  sudden  crumbling  into  the 
arena  of  all  the  Basque  caps  which  ornamented 
the  stone  amphitheatre;  they  press  around  the 
players  who  have  made  themselves  immovable, 
suddenly,  in  tired  attitudes.  And  Ramuntcho 
unfastens  the  thongs  of  his  glove  in  the  middle  of 
a  crowd  of  expansive  admirers;  from  all  sides, 
brave  and  rude  hands  are  stretched  to  grasp  his 
or  to  strike  his  shoulder  amicably. 

"  Have  you  asked  Gracieuse  to  dance  with  you 
this  evening?  "  asks  Arrochkoa,  who  in  this  in- 
stant would  do  anything  for  him. 

"  Yes,  when  she  came  out  of  the  high  mass  I 
spoke  to  her — She  has  promised." 

"Good!  I  feared  that  mother — Oh!  I  would 
have  arranged  it,  in  any  case;  you  may  believe 
me." 

A  robust  old  man  with  square  shoulders,  with 
square  jaws,  with  a  beardless,  monkish  face,  be- 
fore whom  all  bowed  with  respect,  comes  also:  it 
is  Haramburu,  a  player  of  the  olden  time  who 
was  celebrated  half  a  century  ago  in  America  for 
the  game  of  rebot,  and  who  earned  a  small  for- 


Ramuntcho.  57 

tune.  Ramuntcho  blushes  with  pleasure  at  the 
compliment  of  this  old  man,  who  is  hard  to  please. 
And  beyond,  standing  on  the  reddish  benches, 
among  the  long  grasses  and  the  November  scab- 
wort,  his  little  friend,  whom  a  group  of  young 
girls  follows,  turns  back  to  smile  at  him,  to  send 
to  him  with  her  hand  a  gentle  adios  in  the  Spanish 
fashion.  He  is  a  young  god  in  this  moment,  Ra- 
muntcho; people  are  proud  to  know  him,  to  be 
among  his  friends,  to  get  his  waistcoat  for  him, 
to  talk  to  him,  to  touch  him. 

Now,  with  the  other  pelotaris,  he  goes  to  the 
neighboring  inn,  to  a  room  where  are  placed  the 
clean  clothes  of  all  and  where  careful  friends  ac- 
company them  to  rub  their  bodies,  wet  with 
perspiration. 

And,  a  moment  afterward,  elegant  in  a  white 
shirt,  his  cap  on  the  side,  he  comes  out  of  the 
door,  under  the  plane-trees  shaped  like  vaults,  to 
enjoy  again  his  success,  see  the  people  pass,  con- 
tinue to  gather  compliments  and  smiles. 

The  autumnal  day  has  declined,  it  is  evening 
at  present.  In  the  lukewarm  air,  bats  glide.  The 
mountaineers  of  the  surrounding  villages  depart 
one  by  one ;  a  dozen  carriages  are  harnessed,  their 
lanterns  are  lighted,  their  bells  ring  and  they  dis- 
appear in  the  little  shady  paths  of  the  valleys.  In 
the  middle  of  the  limpid  penumbra  may  be  distin- 


58  Ramuntcho. 

guished  the  women,  the  pretty  girls  seated  on 
benches  in  front  of  the  houses,  under  the  vaults 
of  the  plane-trees ;  they  are  only  clear  forms,  their 
Sunday  costumes  make  white  spots  in  the  twi- 
light, pink  spots — and  the  pale  blue  spot  which 
Ramuntcho  looks  at  isthenewgownofGracieuse. 
— Above  all,  filling  the  sky,  the  gigantic  Gizune, 
confused  and  sombre,  is  as  if  it  were  the  centre 
and  the  source  of  the  darkness,  little  by  little 
scattered  over  all  things.  And  at  the  church, 
suddenly  the  pious  bells  ring,  recalling  to  dis- 
tracted minds  the  enclosure  where  the  graves  are, 
the  cypress  trees  around  the  belfry,  and  the  entire 
grand  mystery  of  the  sky,  of  prayer,  of  inevitable 
death. 

Oh!  the  sadness  of  ends  of  festivals  in  very 
isolated  villages,  when  the  sun  ceases  to  illumi- 
ate,  and  when  it  is  autumn — 

They  know  very  well,  these  men  who  were  so 
ardent  a  moment  ago  in  the  humble  pleasures  of 
the  day,  that  in  the  cities  there  are  other  festivals 
more  brilliant,  more  beautiful  and  less  quickly 
ended;  but  this  is  something  separate;  it  is  the 
festival  of  the  country,  of  their  own  country,  and 
nothing  can  replace  for  them  these  furtive  in- 
stants whereof  they  have  thought  for  so  many 
days  in  advance — Lovers  who  will  depart  toward 
the  scattered  houses  flanking  the  Pyrenees, 


Ramuntcho.  59 

couples  who  to-morrow  will  begin  over  their 
monotonous  and  rude  life,  look  at  one  another 
before  separating,  look  at  one  another  under  the 
falling  night,  with  regretful  eyes  that  say :  "Then, 
it  is  finished  already?  Then,  that  is  all? — " 


60  Ramunteho. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Eight  o'clock  in  the  evening.  They  have  dined 
at  the  cider  mill,  all  the  players  except  the  vicar, 
under  the  patronage  of  Itchoua;  they  have 
lounged  for  a  long  time  afterward,  languid  in  the 
smoke  of  smuggled  cigarettes  and  listening  to 
the  marvellous  improvisations  of  the  two  Iragola 
brothers,  of  the  Mendiazpi  mountain — while  out- 
side, on  the  street,  the  girls  in  small  groups 
holding  one  another's  arms,  looked  at  the  win- 
dows, found  pleasure  in  observing  on  the  smoky 
panes  the  round  shadows  of  the  heads  of  the  men 
covered  with  similar  caps — 

Now,  on  the  square,  the  brass  band  plays  the 
first  measures  of  the  fandango,  and  the  young 
men,  the  young  girls,  all  those  of  the  village  and 
several  also  of  the  mountain  who  have  remained 
to  dance,  arrive  in  impatient  groups.  There  are 
some  dancing  already  on  the  road,  not  to  lose 
anything. 

And  soon  the  fandango  turns,  turns,  in  the 
light  of  the  new  moon  the  horns  of  which  seem 
to  pose,  lithe  and  light,  on  the  enormous  and 
heavy  mountain.  In  the  couples  that  dance  with- 


Ramuntcho.  61 

out  ever  touching  each  other,  there  is  never  a 
separation;  before  one  another  always  and  at  an 
equal  distance,  the  boy  and  the  girl  make  evolu- 
tions with  a  rhythmic  grace,  as  if  they  were  tied 
together  by  some  invisible  magnet. 

It  has  gone  into  hiding,  the  crescent  of  the 
moon,  fallen,  one  would  think,  in  the  black  moun- 
tain ;  then  lanterns  are  brought  and  hooked  to  the 
trunks  of  the  plane-trees  and  the  young  men  can 
see  better  their  partners  who,  opposite  them 
swing  with  an  air  of  fleeing  continually,  but  with- 
out increasing  their  distance  ever:  almost  all  pret- 
ty, their  hair  elegantly  dressed,  a  kerchief  on  the 
neck,  and  wearing  with  ease  gowns  in  the  fashion 
of  to-day.  The  men,  somewhat  grave  always,  ac- 
company the  music  with  snaps  of  their  fingers 
in  the  air:  shaven  and  sunburnt  faces  to  which 
labor  in  the  fields,  in  smuggling  or  at  sea,  has 
given  a  special  thinness,  almost  ascetic;  still,  by 
the  ampleness  of  their  brown  necks,  by  the  width 
of  their  shoulders,  one  divines  their  great 
strength,  the  strength  of  that  old,  sober  and 
religious  race. 

The  fandango  turns  and  oscillates,  to  the  tune 
of  an  ancient  waltz.  All  the  arms,  extended  and 
raised,  agitate  themselves  in  the  air,  rise  or  fall 
with  pretty,  cadenced  motions  following  the 
oscillations  of  bodies.  The  rope-soled  sandals 


62  Ramuntcho. 

make  this  dance  silent  and  infinitely  light;  one 
hears  only  the  frou-frou  of  gowns,  and  ever  the 
snap  of  fingers  imitating  the  noise  of  castanets. 
With  a  Spanish  grace,  the  girls,  whose  wide 
sleeves  expand  like  wings,  swing  their  tightened 
waists  above  their  vigorous  and  supple  hips — ' 

Facing  one  another,  Ramuntcho  and  Gracieuse 
said  nothing  at  first,  captivated  by  the  childish 
joy  of  moving  quickly  in  cadence,  to  the  sound  of 
music.  It  is  very  chaste,  that  manner  of  dancing 
without  the  slightest  touch  of  bodies. 

But  there  were  also,  in  the  course  of  the 
evening,  waltzes  and  quadrilles,  and  even  walks 
arm-in-arm  during  which  the  lovers  could  touch 
each  other  and  talk. 

"  Then,  my  Ramuntcho,"  said  Gracieuse,  "  it 
is  of  that  game  that  you  expect  to  make  your 
future,  is  it  not?  " 

They  were  walking  now  arm-in-arm,  under  the 
plane-trees  shedding  their  leaves  in  the  night  of 
November,  lukewarm  as  a  night  of  May,  during 
an  interval  of  silence  when  the  musicians  were 
resting. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Ramuntcho,  "in  our  country  it 
is  a  trade,  like  any  other,  where  one  may  earn  a 
living,  as  long  as  strength  lasts — and  one  may  go 
from  time  to  time  to  South  America,  you  know, 
as  Irun  and  Gorosteguy  have  done,  and  bring 


Ramuntcho.  63 

back  twenty,  thirty  thousand  francs  for  a  season, 
earned  honestly  at  Buenos  Ayres." 

"Oh,  the  Americas — "  exclaimed  Gracieuse  in 
a  joyful  enthusiasm —  "the  Americas,  what  hap- 
piness! It  was  always  my  wish  to  go  across  the 
sea  to  those  countries! — And  we  would  look  for 
your  uncle  Ignacio,  then  go  to  my  cousin,  Bide- 
gaina,  who  has  a  farm  on  the  Uruguay,  in  the 
prairies — " 

She  ceased  talking,  the  little  girl  who  had 
never  gone  out  of  that  village  which  the  moun- 
tains enclose ;  she  stopped  to  think  of  these  far-off 
lands  which  haunted  her  young  head  because  she 
had,  like  most  Basques,  nomadic  ancestors — 
folks  who  are  called  here  Americans  or  Indians, 
who  pass  their  adventurous  lives  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean  and  return  to  the  cherished  vil- 
lage only  very  late,  to  die.  And,  while  she 
dreamed,  her  nose  in  the  air,  her  eyes  in  the  black 
of  the  clouds  and  of  the  summits,  Ramuntcho 
felt  his  blood  running  faster,  his  heart  beating 
quicker  in  the  intense  joy  of  what  she  had  just 
said  so  spontaneously.  And,  inclining  his  head 
toward  her,  he  asked,  as  if  to  jest,  in  a  voice  in- 
finitely soft  and  childish: 

"We  would  go?  Is  that  what  you  said:  we 
would  go,  you  with  me?  This  signifies  therefore 
that  you  would  consent,  a  little  later,  when  we 
become  of  age,  to  marry  me?" 


64  Ramuntcho. 

He  perceived  through  the  darkness  the  gentle 
black  light  of  Gracieuse's  eyes,  which  rose  toward 
him  with  an  expression  of  astonishment  and  of 
reproach. 

"  Then — you  did  not  know?  " 

"  I  wanted  to  make  you  say  it,  you  see — You 
had  never  said  it  to  me,  do  you  know? — " 

He  held  tighter  the  arm  of  his  little  betrothed 
and  their  walk  became  slower.  It  is  true  that 
they  had  never  said  it,  not  only  because  it  seemed 
to  them  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  say,  but  es- 
pecially because  they  were  stopped  at  the  moment 
of  speaking  by  a  sort  of  terror — the  terror  of  be- 
ing mistaken  about  each  other's  sentiment — and 
now  they  knew,  they  were  sure.  Then  they  had 
the  consciousness  of  having  passed  together  the 
grave  and  solemn  threshold  of  life.  And,  leaning 
on  one  another,  they  faltered,  almost,  in  their 
slackened  promenade,  like  two  children  intoxic- 
ated by  youthfulness,  joy  and  hope. 

"  But  do  you  think  your  mother  will  consent?  '' 
said  Ramuntcho  timidly,  after  the  long,  delightful 
silence — 

"Ah,  that  is  the  trouble",  replied  the  little  girl 
with  a  sigh  of  anxiety — "Arrochkoa,.  my  brother, 
will  be  for  us,  it  is  probable.  But  mother? — Will 
mother  consent? — But,  it  will  not  happen  soon,  in 
any  case — You  have  to  serve  in  the  army." 


Ramuntcho.  65 

"  No,  if  you  do  not  want  me  to !  No,  I  need 
not  serve !  I  am  a  Guipuzcoan,  like  my  mother ; 
I  shall  be  enrolled  only  if  I  wish  to  be — Whatever 
you  say,  I'll  do — '' 

"  My  Ramuntcho,  I  would  like  better  to  wait 
for  you  longer  and  that  you  become  naturalized, 
and  that  you  become  a  soldier  like  the  others.  I 
tell  you  this,  since  you  ask — " 

"Truly,  is  it  what  you  wish?  Well,  so  much 
the  better.  Oh,  to  be  a  Frenchman  or  a  Spaniard 
is  indifferent  to  me.  I  shall  do  as  you  wish.  I 
like  as  well  one  as  the  other:  I  am  a  Basque 
like  you,  like  all  of  us;  I  care  not  for  the  rest! 
But  as  for  being  a  soldier  somewhere,  on  this 
side  of  the  frontier  or  on  the  other,  yes,  I  prefer 
it.  In  the  first  place,  one  who  goes  away  looks 
as  if  he  were  running  away;  and  then,  it  would 
please  me  to  be  a  soldier,  frankly." 

"  Well,  my  Ramuntcho,  since  it  is  all  the  same 
to  you,  serve  as  a  soldier  in  France,  to  please  me/' 

"  It  is  understood,  Gatchutcha! — You  will  see 
me  wearing  red  trousers.  I  shall  call  on  you  in 
the  dress  of  a  soldier,  like  Bidegarray,  like 
Joachim.  As  soon  as  I  have  served  my  three 
years,  we  will  marry,  if  your  mother  consents! " 

After  a  moment  of  silence  Gracieuse  said,  in 
a  low,  solemn  voice: 

"  Listen,  my  Ramuntcho — I  am  like  you :    I 


66  Ramuntcho 

am  afraid  of  her — of  my  mother — But  listen — if 
she  refuses,  we  shall  do  together  any  thing,  any- 
thing that  you  wish,  for  this  is  the  only  thing  in 
the  world  in  which  I  shall  not  obey  her — ' 

Then,  silence  returned  between  them,  now  that 
they  were  engaged,  the  incomparable  silence  of 
young  joys,  of  joys  new  and  not  yet  tried,  which 
need  to  hush,  which  need  to  meditate  in  order  to 
understand  themselves  better  in  their  profound- 
ness. They  walked  in  short  steps  and  at  random 
toward  the  church,  in  the  soft  obscurity  which 
the  lanterns  troubled  no  longer,  intoxicated  by 
their  innocent  contact  and  by  feeling  that  they 
were  walking  together  in  the  path  where  no  one 
had  followed  them — 

But  the  noise  of  the  brass  instruments  sud- 
denly arose  anew,  in  a  sort  of  slow  waltz,  oddly 
rhythmic.  And  the  two  children,  at  the  fandan- 
go's appeal,  without  having  consulted  each  other,, 
and  as  if  it  was  a  compulsory  thing  which  may  not 
be  disputed,  ran,  not  to  lose  a  moment,  toward 
the  place  where  the  couples  were  dancing. 
Quickly,  quickly  placing  themselves  opposite 
each  other,  they  began  again  to  swing  in  measure, 
without  talking  to  each  other,  with  the  same 
pretty  gestures  of  their  arms,  the  same  supple 
motions  of  their  hips.  From  time  to  time,  with- 
out loss  of  step  or  distance,  both  ran,  in  a  direct 
line  like  arrows.  But  this  was  only  an  habitual 


Ramuntcho.  67 

variation  of  the  dance, — and,  ever  in  measure, 
quickly,  as  if  they  were  gliding,  they  returned  to 
their  starting  point. 

Gracieuse  had  in  dancing  the  same  passionate 
ardor  as  in  praying  at  the  white  chapels, — the 
same  ardor  which  later  doubtless,  she  would  have 
in  embracing  Ramuntcho  when  caresses  between 
them  would  not  be  forbidden.  And  at  moments, 
at  every  fifth  or  sixth  measure,  at  the  same  time 
as  her  light  and  strong  partner,  she  turned  round 
completely,  the  bust  bent  with  Spanish  grace,  the 
head  thrown  backward,  the  lips  half  open  on  the 
whiteness  of  the  teeth,  a  distinguished  and  proud 
grace  disengaging  itself  from  her  little  person- 
ality, still  so  mysterious,  which  to  Ramuntcho 
only  revealed  itself  a  little. 

During  all  this  beautiful  evening  of  November, 
they  danced  before  each  other,  mute  and  charm- 
ing, with  intervals  of  promenade  in  which  they 
hardly  talked — intoxicated  in  silence  by  the 
delicious  thought  with  which  their  minds  were 
filled. 

And,  until  the  curfew  rang  in  the  church,  this 
dance  under  the  branches  of  autumn,  these  little 
lanterns,  this  little  festival  in  this  corner  closed 
to  the  world,  threw  a  little  light  and  joyful  noise 
into  the  vast  night  which  the  mountains,  standing 
everywhere  like  giants  of  shadow,  made  more 
dumb  and  more  black. 


68  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

There  is  to  be  a  grand  ball-game  next  Sunday, 
for  the  feast  of  Saint  Damasus,  in  the  borough 
of  Hasparitz. 

Arrochkoa  and  Ramuntcho,  companions  in 
continual  expeditions  through  the  surrounding 
country,  travelled  for  the  entire  day,  in  the  little 
wagon  of  the  Detcharry  family,  in  order  to 
organize  that  ball-game,  which  to  them  is  a  con- 
siderable event. 

In  the  first  place,  they  had  to  consult  Marcos, 
one  of  the  Iragola  brothers.  Near  a  wood,  in 
front  of  his  house  in  the  shade,  they  found  him 
seated  on  a  stump  of  a  chestnut  tree,  always 
grave  and  statuesque,  his  eyes  inspired  and  his 
gesture  noble,  in  the  act  of  making  his  little 
brother,  still  in  swaddling  clothes,  eat  soup. 

"  Is  he  the  eleventh? "  they  have  asked, 
laughing. 

"Oh!  Go  on!  "  the  big  eldest  brother  has  re- 
plied, "the  eleventh  is  running  already  like  a  hare 
in  the  heather.  This  is  number  twelve! — little 
John  the  Baptist,  you  know,  the  latest,  who,  I 
think,  will  not  be  the  last." 


Ramuntcho.  69 

And  then,  lowering  their  heads  not  to  strike 
the  branches,  they  had  traversed  the  woods,  the 
forests  of  oaks  under  which  extends  infinitely  the 
reddish  lace  of  ferns. 

And  they  have  traversed  several  villages  also, 
— Basque  villages,  all  grouped  around  these  two 
things  which  are  the  heart  of  them  and  which 
symbolize  their  life:  the  church  and  the  ball- 
game.  Here  and  there,  they  have  knocked  at 
the  doors  of  isolated  houses,  tall  and  large  houses, 
carefully  whitewashed,  with  green  shades,  and 
wooden  balconies  where  are  drying  in  the  sun 
strings  of  red  peppers.  At  length  they  have 
talked,  in  their  language  so  closed  to  strangers 
of  France,  with  the  famous  players,  the  titled 
champions, — the  ones  whose  odd  names  have 
been  seen  in  all  the  journals  of  the  southwest,  on 
all  the  posters  of  Biarritz  or  of  Saint-Jean-de- 
Luz,  and  who,  in  ordinary  life,  are  honest  country 
inn-keepers,  blacksmiths,  smugglers,  with  waist- 
coat thrown  over  the  shoulder  and  shirt  sleeves 
rolled  on  bronze  arms. 

Now  that  all  is  settled  and  that  the  last  words 
have  been  exchanged,  it  is  too  late  to  return  that 
night  to  Etchezar;  then,  following  their  errant 
habits,  they  select  for  the  night  a  village  which 
they  like,  Zitzarry,  for  example,  where  they  have 
gone  often  for  their  smuggling  business.  At  the 


70  Ramuntcho. 

fall  of  night,  then,  they  turn  toward  this  place, 
which  is  near  Spain.  They  go  by  the  same  little 
Pyrenean  routes,  shady  and  solitary  under  the 
old  oaks  that  are  shedding  their  leaves,  among 
slopes  richly  carpeted  with  moss  and  rusty  ferns. 
And  now  there  are  ravines  where  torrents  roar, 
and  then  heights  from  which  appear  on  all  sides 
the  tall,  sombre  peaks. 

At  first  it  was  cold,  a  real  cold,  lashing  the 
face  and  the  chest.  But  now  gusts  begin  to  pass 
astonishingly  warm  and  perfumed  with  the  scent 
of  plants:  the  southern  wind,  rising  again,  bring- 
ing back  suddenly  the  illusion  of  summer.  And 
then,  it  becomes  for  them  a  delicious  sensation 
to  go  through  the  air,  so  brusquely  changed,  to 
go  quickly  under  the  lukewarm  breaths,  in  the 
noise  of  their  horse's  bells  galloping  playfully  in 
the  mountains. 

Zitzarry,  a  smugglers'  village,  a  distant  village 
skirting  the  frontier.  A  dilapidated  inn  where, 
according  to  custom,  the  rooms  for  the  men  are 
directly  above  the  stables,  the  black  stalls.  They 
are  well-known  travelers  there,  Arrochkoa  and 
Ramuntcho,  and  while  men  are  lighting  the  fire 
for  them  they  sit  near  an  antique,  mullioned  win" 
dow,  which  overlooks  the  square  of  the  ball-game 
and  the  church ;  they  see  the  tranquil,  little  life  of 
the  day  ending  in  this  place  so  separated  from 
the  world. 


Ramuntcho.  71 

On  this  solemn  square,  the  children  practice 
the  national  game;  grave  and  ardent,  already 
strong,  they  throw  their  pelota  against  the  wall, 
while,  in  a  singing  voice  and  with  the  needful  in- 
tonation, one  of  them  counts  and  announces  the 
points,  in  the  mysterious  tongue  of  the  ancestors. 
Around  them,  the  tall  houses,  old  and  white,  with 
warped  walls,  with  projecting  rafters,  con- 
template through  their  green  or  red  windows 
those  little  players,  so  lithe,  who  run  in  the  twi- 
light like  young  cats.  And  the  carts  drawn  by 
oxen  return  from  the  fields,  with  the  noise  of  bells, 
bringing  loads  of  wood,  loads  of  gorse  or  of  dead 
ferns — The  night  falls,  falls  with  its  peace  and  its 
sad  cold.  Then,  the  angelus  rings — and  there  is, 
in  the  entire  village,  a  tranquil,  prayerful  medi- 
tation— 

Then  Ramuntcho,  silent,  worries  about  his 
destiny,  feels  as  if  he  were  a  prisoner  here,  with 
his  same  aspirations  always,  toward  something 
unknown,  he  knows  not  what,  which  troubles 
him  at  the  approach  of  night.  And  his  heart 
also  fills  up,  because  he  is  alone  and  without 
support  in  the  world,  because  Gracieuse  is  in  a 
situation  different  from  his  and  may  never  be 
given  to  him. 

But  Arrochkoa,  very  brotherly  this  time,  in 
one  of  his  good  moments,  slaps  him  on  the  shoul- 


72  Ramuntcho. 

der  as  if  he  had  understood  his  reverie,  and  says 
to  him  in  a  tone  of  light  gaiety : 

"  Well !  it  seems  that  you  talked  together,  last 
night,  sister  and  you — she  told  me  about  it — and 
that  you  are  both  prettily  agreed ! — " 

Ramuntcho  lifts  toward  him  a  long  look  of 
anxious  and  grave  interrogation,  which  is  in  con- 
trast with  the  beginning  of  their  conversation : 

"And  what  do  you  think,"  he  asks,  "of  what 
we  have  said? " 

"Oh,  my  friend,"  replied  Arrochkoa,  become 
more  serious  also,  "on  my  word  of  honor,  it  suits 
me  very  well — And  even,  as  I  fear  that  there  shall 
be  trouble  with  mother,  I  promise  to  help  you  if 
you  need  help — " 

And  Ramuntcho's  sadness  is  dispelled  as  a 
little  dust  on  which  one  has  blown.  He  finds  the 
supper  delicious,  the  inn  gay.  He  feels  himself 
much  more  engaged  to  Gracieuse,  now,  when 
somebody  is  in  the  secret,  and  somebody  in  the 
family  who  does  not  repulse  him.  He  had  a 
presentiment  that  Arrochkoa  would  not  be 
hostile  to  him,  but  his  co-operation,  so  clearly 
offered,  far  surpasses  Ramuntcho's  hope — Poor 
little  abandoned  fellow,  so  conscious  of  the 
humbleness  of  his  situation,  that  the  support  of 
another  child,  a  little  better  established  in  life, 
suffices  to  return  to  him  courage  and  confidence ! 


Ramuntcho.  73 


CHAPTER  VII. 

At  the  uncertain  and  somewhat  icy  dawn,  he 
awoke  in  his  little  room  in  the  inn,  with  a  persist- 
ent impression  of  his  joy  on  the  day  before,  in- 
stead of  the  confused  anguish  which  accompa- 
nied so  often  in  him  the  progressive  return  of  his 
thoughts.  Outside,  were  sounds  of  bells  of  cat- 
tle starting  for  the  pastures,  of  cows  lowing  to 
the  rising  sun,  of  church  bells, — and  already, 
against  the  wrall  of  the  large  square,  the  sharp 
snap  of  the  Basque  pelota:  all  the  noises  of  a 
Pyrenean  village  beginning  again  its  customary 
life  for  another  day.  And  all  this  seemed  to  Ra- 
muntcho the  early  music  of  a  day's  festival. 

At  an  early  hour,  they  returned,  Arrochkoa 
and  he,  to  their  little  wagon,  and,  crushing  their 
caps  against  the  wind,  started  their  horse  at  a 
gallop  on  the  roads,  powdered  with  white  frost. 

At  Etchezar,  where  they  arrived  at  noon,  one 
ivould  have  thought  it  was  summer, — so  beauti- 
ful was  the  sun. 

In  the  little  garden  in  front  of  her  house,  Gra- 
cieuse  sat  on  a  stone  bench : 

"  I  have  spoken  to  Arrochkoa!  "  said  Ramun- 


74  Ramuntcho. 

tcho  to  her,  with  a  happy  smile,  as  soon  as  they 
were  alone — "And  he  is  entirely  with  us,  you 
know!" 

"Oh!  that,"  replied  the  little  girl,  without  los- 
ing the  sadly  pensive  air  which  she  had  that 
morning,  "oh,  that! — my  brother  Arrochkoa,  I 
suspected  it,  it  was  sure!  A  pelota  player  like 
you,  you  should  know,  was  made  to  please  him, 
in  his  mind  there  is  nothing  superior  to  that — " 

"  But  your  mother,  Gatchutcha,  for  several 
days  has  acted  much  better  to  me,  I  think — For 
example,  Sunday,  you  remember,  when  I  asked 
you  to  dance — " 

"Oh!  don't  trust  to  that,  my  Ramuntcho! — 
you  mean  day  before  yesterday,  after  the  high 
mass? — It  was  because  she  had  just  talked  with 
the  Mother  Superior,  have  you  not  noticed? — 
And  the  Mother  Superior  had  insisted  that  I 
should  not  dance  with  you  on  the  square;  then, 
only  to  be  contrary,  you  understand — But,  don't 
rely  on  that,  no — " 

"Oh ! "  replied  Ramuntcho,  whose  joy  had  al- 
ready gone,  "  it  is  true  that  they  are  not  very 
friendly—" 

"  Friendly,  mama  and  the  Mother  Superior? — 
Like  a  dog  and  a  cat,  yes ! — Since  there  was  talk 
of  my  going  into  the  convent,  do  you  not  remem- 
ber that  story?" 


Ramuntcho.  75 

He  remembered  very  well,  on  the  contrary, 
and  it  frightened  him  still.  The  smiling  and 
mysterious  black  nuns  had  tried  once  to  attract 
to  the  peace  of  their  houses  that  little  blonde 
head,  exalted  and  willful,  possessed  by  an  im- 
mense necessity  to  love  and  to  be  loved — 

"  Gatchutcha!  you  are  always  at  the  sisters', 
or  with  them;  why  so  often?  explain  this  to  me: 
they  are  very  agreeable  to  you?  " 

"The  sisters?  no,  my  Ramuntcho,  especially 
those  of  the  present  time,  who  are  new  in  the 
country  and  whom  I  hardly  know — for  they 
change  them  often,  you  know — The  sisters,  no — 
I  will  even  tell  you  that  I  am  like  mama  about 
the  Mother  Superior.  I  cannot  endure  her — " 

"  Well,  then,  what?—" 

"  No,  but  what  will  you?  I  like  their  songs, 
their  chapels,  their  houses,  everything — I  cannot 
explain  that  to  you — Anyway,  boys  do  not  under- 
stand anything — " 

The  little  smile  with  which  she  said  this  was 
at  once  extinguished,  changed  into  a  con- 
templative expression  or  an  absent  expression, 
which  Ramuntcho  had  often  seen  in  her.  She 
looked  attentively  in  front  of  her,  although  there 
were  on  the  road  only  the  leafless  trees,  the  brown 
mass  of  the  crushing  mountain ;  but  it  seemed  as 
if  Gracieuse  was  enraptured  in  melancholy 


76  Ramuntcho. 

ecstasy  by  things  perceived  beyond  them,  by 
things  which  the  eyes  of  Ramuntcho  could  not 
distinguish — And  during  their  silence  the  angelus 
of  noon  began  to  ring,  throwing  more  peace  on 
the  tranquil  village  which  was  warming  itself  in 
the  winter  sun;  then,  bending  their  heads,  they 
made  naively  together  their  sign  of  the  cross — 

Then,  when  ceased  to  vibrate  the  holy  bell, 
which  in  the  Basque  villages  interrupts  life  as  in 
the  Orient  the  song  of  the  muezzins,  Ramuntcho 
decided  to  say: 

"  It  frightens  me,  Gatchutcha,  to  see  you  in 
their  company  always — I  cannot  but  ask  myself 
what  ideas  are  in  your  head — " 

Fixing  on  him  the  profound  blackness  of  her 
eyes,  she  replied,  in  a  tone  of  soft  reproach : 

"It  is  you  talking  to  me  in  that  way,  after  what 
we  have  said  to  each  other  Sunday  night! — If  I 
were  to  lose  you,  yes  then,  perhaps — surely,  even! 
— But  until  then,  oh!  no — oh!  you  may  rest  in 
peace,  my  Ramuntcho — " 

He  bore  for  a  long  time  her  look,  which  little 
by  little  brought  back  to  him  entire  delicious  con- 
fidence, and  at  last  he  smiled  with  a  childish  smile: 

"  Forgive  me,"  he  asked — "I  say  silly  things 
often,  you  know! — " 

"  That,  at  least,  is  the  truth!  " 

Then,  one  heard  the  sound  of  their  laughter, 


Ramuntcho.  77 

which  in  two  different  intonations  had  the  same 
freshness  and  the  same  youthfulness.  Ramun- 
tcho, with  an  habitual  brusque  and  graceful 
gesture,  changed  his  waistcoat  from  one  shoulder 
to  the  other,  pulled  his  cap  on  the  side,  and,  with 
no  other  farewell  than  a  sign  of  the  head,  they 
separated,  for  Dolores  was  corning  from  the  end 
of  the  road. 


Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Midnight,  a  winter  night,  black  as  Hades,  with 
great  wind  and  whipping  rain.  By  the  side  of  the 
Bidassoa,  in  the  midst  of  a  confused  extent  of 
ground  with  treacherous  soil  that  evokes  ideas  of 
chaos,  in  slime  that  their  feet  penetrate,  men  are 
carrying  boxes  on  their  shoulders  and,  walking 
in  the  water  to  their  knees,  come  to  throw  them 
into  a  long  thing,  blacker  than  night,  which  must 
be  a  bark — a  suspicious  bark  without  a  light,  tied 
near  the  bank. 

It  is  again  Itchoua's  band,  which  this  time  will 
work  by  the  river.  They  have  slept  for  a  few 
moments,  all  dressed,  in  the  house  of  a  receiver 
who  lives  near  the  water,  and,  at  the  needed 
hour,  Itchoua,  who  never  closes  but  one  eye,  has 
shaken  his  men;  then,  they  have  gone  out  with 
hushed  tread,  into  the  darkness,  under  the  cold 
shower  propitious  to  smuggling. 

On  the  road  now,  with  the  oars,  to  Spain  whose 
fires  may  be  seen  at  a  distance,  confused  by  the 
rain.  The  weather  is  let  loose;  the  shirts  of  the 
men  are  already  wet,  and,  under  the  caps  pulled 
over  their  eyes,  the  wind  slashes  the  ears.  Never- 


Ramuntcho.  79 

theless,  thanks  to  the  vigor  of  their  arms,  they 
were  going  quickly  and  well,  when  suddenly  ap- 
peared in  the  obscurity  something  like  a  monster 
gliding  on  the  waters.  Bad  business!  It  is  the 
patrol  boat  which  promenades  every  night 
Spain's  customs  officers.  In  haste,  they  must 
change  their  direction,  use  artifice,  lose  precious 
time,  and  they  are  so  belated  already. 

At  last  they  have  arrived  without  obstacle  near 
the  Spanish  shore,  among  the  large  fishermen's 
barks  which,  on  stormy  nights,  sleep  there  on 
their  chains,  in  front  of  the  "Marine"  of  Fonta- 
rabia.  This  is  the  perilous  instant.  Happily,  the 
rain  is  faithful  to  them  and  falls  still  in  torrents. 
Lowered  in  their  skiff  to  be  less  visible,  having 
ceased  to  talk,  pushing  the  bottom  with  their 
oars  in  order  to  make  less  noise,  they  approach 
softly,  softly,  with  pauses  as  soon  as  something 
has  seemed  to  budge,  in  the  midst  of  so  much 
diffuse  black,  of  shadows  without  outlines. 

Now  they  are  crouched  against  one  of  these 
large,  empty  barks  and  almost  touching  the 
earth.  And  this  is  the  place  agreed  upon,  it  is 
there  that  the  comrades  of  the  other  country 
should  be  to  receive  them  and  to  carry  their 
boxes  to  the  receiving  house — There  is  nobody 
there,  however! — Where  are  they? — The  first 
moments  are  passed  in  a  sort  of  paroxysm  of  ex 


80  Ramuntcho. 

pectation  and  of  watching,  which  doubles  the 
power  of  hearing  and  of  seeing.  With  eyes 
dilated,  and  ears  extended,  they  watch,  under  the 
monotonous  dripping  of  the  rain — But  where  are 
the  Spanish  comrades?  Doubtless  the  hour  has 
passed,  because  of  this  accursed  custom  house 
patrol  which  has  disarranged  the  voyage,  and,  be- 
lieving that  the  undertaking  has  failed  this  time, 
they  have  gone  back — 

Several  minutes  flow,  in  the  same  immobility 
and  the  same  silence.  They  distinguish,  around 
them,  the  large,  inert  barks,  similar  to  floating 
bodies  of  beasts,  and  then,  above  the  waters,  a 
mass  of  obscurities  denser  than  the  obscurities  of 
the  sky  and  which  are  the  houses,  the  mountains 
of  the  shore — They  wait,  without  a  movement, 
without  a  word.  They  seem  to  be  ghosts  of 
boatmen  near  a  dead  city. 

Little  by  little  the  tension  of  their  senses  weak- 
ens, a  lassitude  comes  to  them  with  the  need  of 
sleep — and  they  would  sleep  there,  under  this 
winter  rain,  if  the  place  were  not  so  dangerous. 

Itchoua  then  consults  in  a  low  voice,  in  Basque 
language,  the  two  eldest,  and  they  decide  to  do  a 
bold  thing.  Since  the  others  are  not  coming, 
well !  so  much  the  worse,  they  will  go  alone,  carry 
to  the  house  over  there,  the  smuggled  boxes.  It 
is  risking  terribly,  but  the  idea  is  in  their  heads 
and  nothing  can  stop  them. 


Ramuntcho.  8 1 

"You,"  says  Itchoua  to  Ramuntcho,  in  his 
manner  which  admits  of  no  discussion,  "  you 
shall  be  the  one  to  watch  the  bark,  since  you  have 
never  been  in  the  path  that  we  are  taking;  you 
shall  tie  it  to  the  bottom,  but  not  too  solidly,  do 
you  hear?  We  must  be  ready  to  run  if  the 
carbineers  arrive." 

So  they  go,  all  the  others,  their  shoulders  bent 
under  the  heavy  loads,  the  rustling,  hardly  per- 
ceptible, of  their  march  is  lost  at  once  on  the 
quay  which  is  so  deserted  and  so  black,  in  the 
midst  of  the  monotonous  dripping  of  the  rain. 
And  Ramuntcho,  who  has  remained  alone, 
crouches  at  the  bottom  of  the  skiff  to  be  less 
visible  becomes  immovable  again,  under  the  in- 
cessant sprinkling  of  the  rain,  which  falls  now 
regular  and  tranquil. 

They  are  late,  the  comrades — and  by  degrees, 
in  this  inactivity  and  this  silence,  an  irresistible 
numbness  comes  to  him,  almost  a  sleep. 

But  now  a  long  form,  more  sombre  than  all 
that  is  sombre,  passes  by  him,  passes  very  quick- 
ly,— always  in  this  same  absolute  silence  which 
is  the  characteristic  of  these  nocturnal  undertak- 
ings: one  of  the  large  Spanish  barks! — Yet, 
thinks  he,  since  all  are  at  anchor,  since  this  one 
has  no  sails  nor  oars — then,  what? — It  is  I,  my- 
self, who  am  passing! — and  he  has  understood: 


82  Ramuntcho. 

iris  skiff  was  too  lightly  tied,  and  the  current, 
which  is  very  rapid  here,  is  dragging  him: — and 
he  is  very  far  away,  going  toward  the  mouth  of 
the  Bidassoa,  toward  the  breakers,  toward  the 
sea — 

An  anxiety  has  taken  hold  of  him,  almost  an 
anguish — What  will  he  do? — What  complicates 
everything  is  that  he  must  act  without  a  cry  of 
appeal,  without  a  word,  for,  all  along  this  coast, 
which  seems  to  be  the  land  of  emptiness  and  of 
darkness,  there  are  carbineers,  placed  in  an  in- 
terminable cordon  and  watching  Spain  every 
night  as  if  it  were  a  forbidden  land — He  tries  with 
one  of  the  long  oars  to  push  the  bottom  in  order 
to  return  backward; — but  there  is  no  more  bot- 
tom ;  he  feels  only  the  inconsistency  of  the  fleeting 
and  black  water,  he  is  already  in  the  profound 
pass — Then,  let  him  row,  in  spite  of  everything, 
and  so  much  for  the  worse ! — 

With  great  trouble,  his  forehead  perspiring,  he 
brings  back  alone  against  the  current  the  heavy 
bark,  worried,  at  every  stroke  of  the  oar,  by  the 
small,  disclosing  grating  that  a  fine  ear  over  there 
might  so  well  perceive.  And  then,  one  can  see 
nothing  more,  through  the  rain  grown  thicker 
and  which  confuses  the  eyes;  it  is  dark,  dark  as 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  where  the  devil  lives. 
He  recognizes  no  longer  the  point  of  departure 


Ramuntcho.  83 

where  the  others  must  be  waiting  for  him,  whose 
ruin  he  has  perhaps  caused;  he  hesitates,  he  waits, 
the  ear  extended,  the  arteries  beating,  and  he 
hooks  himself,  for  a  moment's  reflection,  to  one 
of  the  large  barks  of  Spain — Something  ap- 
proaches then,  gliding  with  infinite  precaution  on 
the  surface  of  the  water,  hardly  stirred :  a  human 
shadow,  one  would  think,  a  silhouette  standing: 
— a  smuggler,  surely,  since  he  makes  so  little 
noise !  They  divine  each  other,  and,  thank  God ! 
it  is  Arrochkoa;  Arrochkoa,  who  has  untied  a 
frail,  Spanish  skiff  to  meet  him — So,  their  junc- 
tion is  accomplished  and  they  are  probably  saved 
all,  once  more! 

But  Arrochkoa,  in  meeting  him,  utters  in  a 
wicked  voice,  in  a  voice  tightened  by  his  young, 
feline  teeth,  one  of  those  series  of  insults  which 
call  for  immediate  answer  and  sound  like  an  in- 
vitation to  fight.  It  is  so  unexpected  that  Ra- 
muntcho's  stupor  at  first  immobilizes  him,  re- 
tards the  rush  of  blood  to  his  head.  Is  this  really 
what  his  friend  has  just  said  and  in  such  a  tone  of 
undeniable  insult? — 

"You  said?" 

"  Well !  "  replies  Arrochkoa,  somewhat  soft- 
ened and  on  his  guard,  observing  in  the  darkness 
Ramuntcho's  attitudes.  "Well!  you  had  us  al- 
most caught,  awkward  fellow  that  you  are! — " 


84  Ramuntcho. 

The  silhouettes  of  the  others  appear  in  another 
bark. 

"  They  are  there,"  he  continues.  "  Let  us  go 
near  them ! " 

And  Ramuntcho  takes  his  oarsman's  seat  with 
temples  heated  by  anger,  with  trembling  hands — 
no — he  is  Gracieuse's  brother;  all  would  be  lost 
if  Ramuntcho  fought  with  him;  because  of  her 
he  will  bend  the  head  and  say  nothing. 

Now  their  bark  runs  away  by  force  of  oars, 
carrying  them  all ;  the  trick  has  been  played.  It 
was  time ;  two  Spanish  voices  vibrate  on  the  black 
shore:  two  carbineers,  who  were  sleeping  in  their 
cloaks  and  whom  the  noise  has  awakened ! — And 
they  begin  to  hail  this  flying,  beaconless  bark, 
not  perceived  so  much  as  suspected,  lost  at  once 
in  the  universal,  nocturnal  confusion. 

"  Too  late,  friends,"  laughs  Itchoua,  while  row- 
ing to  the  uttermost.  "  Hail  at  vour  ease  now 
and  let  the  devil  answer  you !  " 

The  current  also  helps  them;  they  go  into  the 
thick  obscurity  with  the  rapidity  of  fishes. 

There!  Now  they  are  in  French  waters,  in 
safety,  not  far,  doubtless,  from  the  slime  of  the 
banks. 

"  Let  us  stop  to  breathe  a  little",  proposes 
Itchoua. 

And  they  raise  their  oars,  halting,  wet  with 


Ramuntcho.  85 

perspiration  and  with  rain.  They  are  immovable 
again  under  the  cold  shower,  which  they  do  not 
seem  to  feel.  There  is  heard  in  the  vast  silence 
only  the  breathing  of  chests,  little  by  little  quieted, 
the  little  music  of  drops  of  water  falling  and  their 
light  rippling.  But  suddenly,  from  this  bark 
which  was  so  quiet,  and  which  had  no  other  im- 
portance than  that  of  a  shadow  hardly  real  in  the 
midst  of  so  much  night,  a  cry  rises,  superacute, 
terrifying:  it  fills  the  emptiness  and  rents  the  far- 
off  distances — It  has  come  from  those  elevated 
notes  which  belong  ordinarily  to  women  only,  but 
with  something  hoarse  and  powerful  that  indicates 
rather  the  savage  male ;  it  has  the  bite  of  the  voice 
of  jackals  and  it  preserves,  nevertheless,  some- 
thing human  which  makes  one  shiver  the  more; 
one  waits  with  a  sort  of  anguish  for  its  end,  and 
it  is  long,  long,  it  is  oppressive  by  its  inexplicable 
length — It  had  begun  like  a  stag's  bell  of  agony 
and  now  it  is  achieved  and  it  dies  in  a  sort  of 
laughter,  sinister  and  burlesque,  like  the  laughter 
of  lunatics — 

However,  around  the  man  who  has  just  cried 
thus  in  the  front  of  the  bark,  none  of  the  others 
is  astonished,  none  budges.  And,  after  a  few 
seconds  of  silent  peace,  a  new  cry,  similar  to  the 
first,  starts  from  the  rear,  replying  to  it  and 
passing  through  the  same  phases, — which  are  of 
a  tradition  infinitely  ancient. 


86  Ramuntcho. 

And  it  is  simply  the  "  irrintzina  ",  the  great 
Basque  cry  which  has  been  transmitted  with 
fidelity  from  the  depth  of  the  abyss  of  ages  to  the 
men  of  our  day,  and  which  constitutes  one  of  the 
strange  characteristics  of  that  race  whose  origins 
are  enveloped  in  mystery.  It  resembles  the  cry 
of  a  being  of  certain  tribes  of  redskins  in  the  for- 
ests of  America;  at  night,  it  gives  the  notion  and 
the  unfathomable  fright  of  primitive  ages,  when, 
in  the  midst  of  the  solitudes  of  the  old  world, 
men  with  monkey  throats  howled. 

This  cry  is  given  at  festivals,  or  for  calls  of 
persons  at  night  in  the  mountains,  and  especially 
to  celebrate  some  joy,  some  unexpected  good 
fortune,  a  miraculous  hunt  or  a  happy  catch  of 
fish  in  the  rivers. 

And  they  are  amused,  the  smugglers,  at  this 
game  of  the  ancestors;  they  give  their  voices  to 
glorify  the  success  of  their  undertaking,  they  yell, 
from  the  physical  necessity  to  be  compensated 
for  their  silence  of  a  moment  ago. 

But  Ramuntcho  remains  mute  and  without  a 
smile.  This  sudden  savagery  chills  him,  although 
he  has  known  it  for  a  long  time;  it  plunges  him 
into  dreams  that  worry  and  do  not  explain  them- 
selves. 

And  then,  he  has  felt  to-night  once  more  how 
uncertain  and  changing  is  his  only  support  in  the 


Ramuntcho.  87 

world,  the  support  of  that  Arrochkoa  on  whom 
he  should  be  able  to  count  as  on  a  brother; 
audacity  and  success  at  the  ball-game  will  return 
that  support  to  him,  doubtless,  but  a  moment  of 
weakness,  nothing,  may  at  any  moment  make 
him  lose  it.  Then  it  seems  to  him  that  the  hope 
of  his  life  has  no  longer  a  basis,  that  all  vanishes 
like  an  unstable  chimera. 


88  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

It  was  New  Year's  eve. 

All  the  day  had  endured  that  sombre  sky  which 
is  so  often  the  sky  of  the  Basque  country — and 
which  harmonizes  well  with  the  harsh  mountains, 
with  the  roar  of  the  sea,  wicked,  in  the  depths  of 
the  Bay  of  Biscay. 

In  the  twilight  of  this  last  day  of  the  year,  at 
the  hour  when  the  fires  retain  the  men  around  the 
hearths  scattered  in  the  country,  at  the  hour  when 
home  is  desirable  and  delicious,  Ramuntcho  and 
his  mother  were  preparing  to  sit  at  the  supper 
table,  when  there  was  a  discreet  knock  at  the 
door. 

The  man  who  was  coming  to  them  from  the 
night  of  the  exterior,  at  the  first  aspect  seemed 
unknown  to  them;  only  when  he  told  his  name 
(Jose  Bidegarray,  of  Hasparitz)  they  recalled  the 
sailor  who  had  gone  several  years  ago  to 
America. 

"Here,"  he  said,  after  accepting  a  chair,  "here 
is  the  message  which  I  have  been  asked  to  bring 
to  you.  Once,  at  Rosario  in  Uruguay,  as  I  was 
talking  on  the  docks  with  several  other  Basque 


Ramuntcho.  89 

immigrants  there,  a  man,  who  might  have  been 
fifty  years  old,  having  heard  me  speak  of  Etche- 
zar,  came  to  me. 

"  'Do  you  come  from  Etchezar?  *  he  asked. 

"  'No/  I  replied,  'but  I  come  from  Hasparitz, 
which  is  not  far  from  Etchezar.' 

"  Then  he  put  questions  to  me  about  all  your 
family.  I  said: 

"  The  old  people  are  dead,  the  elder  brother 
was  killed  in  smuggling,  the  second  has  disap- 
peared in  America;  there  remain  only  Franchita 
and  her  son,  Ramuntcho,  a  handsome  young 
fellow  who  must  be  about  eighteen  years  old  to- 
day.' 

"  He  was  thinking  deeply  while  he  was  listen- 
ing to  me. 

"  'Well/  he  said  at  last,  'since  you  are  going 
back  there,  you  will  say  good-day  to  them  for 
Ignacio.' 

"And  after  offering  a  drink  to  me  he  went 
away — " 

Franchita  had  risen,  trembling  and  paler  than 
ever.  Ignacio,  the  most  adventurous  in  the 
family,  her  brother  who  had  disappeared  for  ten 
years  without  sending  any  news! — 

How  was  he?  What  face?  Dressed  how? — 
Did  he  seem  happy,  at  least,  or  was  he  poorly 
dressed? 


go  Ramuntcho. 

"Oh ! "  replied  the  sailor,  "he  looked  well,  in 
spite  of  his  gray  hair;  as  for  his  costume,  he  ap- 
peared to  be  a  man  of  means,  with  a  beautiful 
gold  chain  on  his  belt." 

And  that  was  all  he  could  say,  with  this  naive 
and  rude  good-day  of  which  he  was  the  bearer; 
on  the  subject  of  the  exile  he  knew  no  more  and 
perhaps,  until  she  died,  Franchita  would  learn 
nothing  more  of  that  brother,  almost  non-exist- 
ing, like  a  phantom. 

Then,  when  he  had  emptied  a  glass  of  cider, 
he  went  on  his  road,  the  strange  messenger,  who 
was  going  to  his  village.  Then,  they  sat  at  table 
without  speaking,  the  mother  and  the  son:  she, 
the  silent  Franchita,  absent  minded,  with  tears 
shining  in  her  eyes;  he,  worried  also,  but  in  a 
different  manner,  by  the  thought  of  that  uncle 
living  in  adventures  over  there. 

When  he  ceased  to  be  a  child,  when  Ramun- 
tcho began  to  desert  from  school,  to  wish  to  fol- 
low the  smugglers  in  the  mountain,  Franchita 
would  say  to  him: 

"Anyway,  you  take  after  your  uncle  Ignacio, 
we  shall  never  make  anything  of  you! — " 

And  it  was  true  that  he  took  after  his  uncle 
Ignacio,  that  he  was  fascinated  by  all  the  things 
that  are  dangerous,  unknown  and  far-off — 

To-night,  therefore,  if  she  did  not  talk  to  her 


Ramuntcho.  91 

son  of  the  message  which  had  just  been  trans- 
mitted to  them,  the  reason  was  she  divined  his 
meditation  on  America  and  was  afraid  of  his 
answers.  Besides,  among  country  people,  the 
little  profound  and  intimate  dramas  are  played 
without  words,  with  misunderstandings  that  are 
never  cleared  up,  with  phrases  only  guessed  at 
and  with  obstinate  silence. 

But,  as  they  were  finishing  their  meal,  they 
heard  a  chorus  of  young  and  gay  voices,  coming 
near,  accompanied  by  a  drum,  the  boys  of  Etche- 
zar,  coming  for  Ramuntcho  to  bring  him  with 
them  in  their  parade  with  music  around  the  vil- 
lage, following  the  custom  of  New  Year's  eve, 
to  go  into  every  house,  drink  in  it  a  glass  of  cider 
and  give  a  joyous  serenade  to  an  old-time  tune. 

And  Ramuntcho,  forgetting  Uruguay  and  the 
mysterious  uncle,  became  a  child  again,  in  the 
pleasure  of  following  them  and  of  singing  with 
them  along  the  obscure  roads,  enraptured  es- 
pecially by  the  thought  that  they  would  go  to 
the  house  of  the  Detcharry  family  and  that  he 
would  see  again,  for  an  instant,  Gracieuse. 


92  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  changeable  month  of  March  had  arrived, 
and  with  it  the  intoxication  of  spring,  joyful  for 
the  young,  sad  for  those  who  are  declining. 

And  Gracieuse  had  commenced  again  to  sit, 
in  the  twilight  of  the  lengthened  days,  on  the 
stone  bench  in  front  of  her  door. 

Oh!  the  old  stone  benches,  around  the  houses, 
made,  in  the  past  ages,  for  the  reveries  of  the 
soft  evenings  and  for  the  eternally  similar  con- 
versations of  lovers! — 

Gracieuse's  house  was  very  ancient,  like  most 
houses  in  that  Basque  country,  where,  less  than 
elsewhere,  the  years  change  the  things. — It  had 
two  stories;  a  large  projecting  roof  in  a  steep 
slope;  walls  like  a  fortress  which  were  white- 
washed every  summer;  very  small  windows, 
with  settings  of  cut  granite  and  green  blinds. 
Above  the  front  door,  a  granite  lintel  bore  an 
inscription  in  relief;  words  complicated  and 
long  which,  to  French  eyes  resembled  nothing 
known.  It  said:  "May  the  Holy  Virgin  bless 
this  home,  built  in  the  year  1630  by  Peter  Det- 
charry,  beadle,  and  his  wife  Damasa  Irribarne, 


Ramuntcho.  93 

of  the  village  of  Istaritz."  A  small  garden  two 
yards  wide,  surrounded  by  a  low  wall  so  that  one 
could  see  the  passers-by,  separated  the  house 
from  the  road;  there  was  a  beautiful  rose  laurel, 
extending  its  southern  foliage  above  the  evening 
bench,  and  there  were  yuccas,  a  palm  tree,  and 
enormous  bunches  of  those  hortensias  which  are 
giants  here,  in  this  land  of  shade,  in  this  luke- 
warm climate,  so  often  enveloped  by  clowds. 
In  the  rear  was  a  badly  closed  orchard  which 
rolled  down  to  an  abandoned  path,  favorable  to 
escalades  of  lovers. 

What  mornings  radiant  with  light  there  were 
in  that  spring,  and  what  tranquil,  pink  evenings! 

After  a  week  of  full  moon  which  kept  the 
fields  till  day-light  blue  with  rays,  and  when  the 
band  of  Itchoua  ceased  to  work, — so  clear  was 
their  habitual  domain,  so  illuminated  were  the 
grand,  vaporous  backgrounds  of  the  Pyrenees 
and  of  Spain — the  frontier  fraud  was  resumed 
more  ardently,  as  soon  as  the  thinned  crescent 
had  become  discreet  and  early  setting.  Then, 
in  these  beautiful  times,  smuggling  by  night 
was  exquisite;  a  trade  of  solitude  and  of  medi- 
tation when  the  mind  of  the  naive  and  very 
pardonable  defrauders  was  elevated  unconscious- 
ly in  the  contemplation  of  the  sky  and  of  the 
darkness  animated  by  stars — as  it  happens  to 


94  Ramuntcho. 

the  mind  of  the  sea  folk  watching,  on  the 
nocturnal  march  of  vessels,  and  as  it  happened 
formerly  to  the  mind  of  the  shepherds  in  antique 
Chaldea. 

It  was  favorable  also  and  tempting  for  lovers, 
that  tepid  period  which  followed  the  full  moon 
of  March,  for  it  was  dark  everywhere  around  the 
houses,  dark  in  all  the  paths  domed  with  trees, — 
and  very  dark,  behind  the  Detcharry  orchard, 
on  the  abandoned  path  where  nobody  ever 
passed. 

Gracieuse  lived  more  and  more  on  her  bench 
in  front  of  her  door. 

It  was  here  that  she  was  seated,  as  every  year, 
to  receive  and  look  at  the  carnival  dancers :  those 
groups  of  young  boys  and  of  young  girls  of 
Spain  or  of  France,  who,  every  spring,  organize 
themselves  for  several  days  in  a  wandering  band, 
and,  all  dressed  in  the  same  pink  or  white  colors, 
traverse  the  frontier  village,  dancing  the  fan- 
dango in  front  of  houses,  with  castanets — 

She  stayed  later  and  later  in  this  place  which 
she  liked,  under  the  shelter  of  the  rose-laurel 
coming  into  bloom,  and  sometimes  even,  she 
came  out  noiselessly  through  the  window,  like 
a  little,  sly  fox,  to  breathe  there  at  length,  after 
her  mother  had  gone  to  bed.  Ramuntcho  knew 
this  and,  every  night,  the  thought  of  that  bench 
troubled  his  sleep. 


Ramuntcho.  95 


CHAPTER  XI. 

One  clear  April  morning,  they  were  walking 
to  the  church,  Gracieuse  and  Ramuntcho.  She, 
with  an  air  half  grave,  half  mocking,  with  a 
particular  and  very  odd  air,  leading  him  there 
to  make  him  do  a  penance  which  she  had  or- 
dered. 

In  the  holy  enclosure,  the  flowerbeds  of  the 
tombs  were  coming  into  bloom  again,  as  also 
the  rose  bushes  on  the  walls.  Once  more  the 
new  saps  were  awakening  above  the  long  sleep 
of  the  dead.  They  went  in  together,  through 
the  lower  door,  into  the  empty  church,  where 
the  old  "benoite"  in  a  black  mantilla  was  alone, 
dusting  the  altars. 

When  Gracieuse  had  given  to  Ramuntcho  the 
holy  water  and  they  had  made  their  signs  of  the 
cross,  she  led  him  through  the  sonorous  nave, 
paved  with  funereal  stones,  to  a  strange  image 
on  the  wall,  in  a  shady  corner,  under  the  men's 
tribunes. 

It  was  a  painting,  impregnated  with  ancient 
mysticism,  representing  the  figure  of  Jesus  with 
eyes  closed,  forehead  bloody,  expression  lament- 


96  Ramuntcho. 

able  and  dead;  the  head  seemed  to  be  cut  off, 
separated  from  the  body,  and  placed  there  on 
a  gray  linen  cloth.  Above,  were  written  the 
long  Litanies  of  the  Holy  Face,  which  have 
been  composed,  as  everybody  knows,  to  be  re- 
cited in  penance  by  repentant  blasphemers.  The 
day  before,  Ramuntcho,  in  anger,  had  sworn  in 
an  ugly  manner:  a  quite  unimaginable  string  of 
words,  wherein  the  sacraments  and  the  most 
saintly  things  were  mingled  with  the  horns  of 
the  devil  and  other  villainous  things  still  more 
frightful.  That  is  why  the  necessity  for  a 
penance  had  impressed  itself  on  the  mind  of  Gra- 
cieuse. 

"  Come,  my  Ramuntcho,"  she  recommended, 
as  she  walked  away,  "omit  nothing  of  what  you 
must  say." 

She  left  him  then  in  front  of  the  Holy  Face, 
beginning  to  murmur  his  litanies  in  a  low  voice, 
and  went  to  the  good  woman  and  helped  her  to 
change  the  water  of  the  white  Easter  daisies  in 
front  of  the  altar  of  the  Virgin. 

But  when  the  languorous  evening  returned,  and 
Gracieuse  was  seated  in  the  darkness  meditating 
on  her  stone  bench,  a  young  human  form  started 
up  suddenly  near  her;  someone  who  had  come 
in  sandals,  without  making  more  noise  than  the 
silk  owls  make  in  the  air,  from  the  rear  of  the 


Ramuntcho.  97 

garden  doubtless,  after  some  scaling,  and  who 
stood  there,  straight,  his  waistcoat  thrown  over 
one  shoulder:  the  one  to  whom  were  addressed 
all  her  tender  emotions  on  earth,  the  one  who 
incarnated  the  ardent  dream  of  her  heart  and  of 
her  senses — 

"Ramuntcho!"  she  said.  "Oh!  how  you 
frightened  me.  Where  did  you  come  from  at 
such  an  hour?  What  do  you  want?  Why  did 
you  come?  " 

"  Why  did  I  come?  In  my  turn,  to  order  you 
to  do  penance,"  he  replied,  laughing. 

"  No,  tell  the  truth,  what  is  the  matter,  what 
are  you  coming  to  do?  " 

"To  see  you,  only!  That  is  what  I  come  to 
do — What  will  you  have!  We  never  see  each 
other! — Your  mother  keeps  me  at  a  distance 
more  and  more  every  day.  I  cannot  live  in  that 
way. — We  are  not  doing  any  harm,  after  all, 
since  we  are  to  be  married!  And  you  know,  I 
could  come  every  night,  if  you  like,  without  any- 
body suspecting  it — " 

"Oh!  no! — Oh!  do  not  do  that  ever,  I  beg  of 
you—" 

They  talked  for  an  instant,  and  so  low,  so  low, 
with  more  silence  than  words,  as  if  they  were 
afraid  to  wake  up  the  birds  in  their  nests.  They 
recognized  no  longer  the  sound  of  their  voices, 


98  Ramuntcho. 

so  changed  and  so  trembling  they  were,  as  if 
they  had  committed  some  delicious  and  damn- 
able crime,  by  doing  nothing  but  staying  near 
each  other,  in  the  grand,  caressing  mystery  of 
that  night  of  April,  which  was  hatching  around 
them  so  many  ascents  of  saps,  so  many  germin- 
ations and  so  many  loves — 

He  had  not  even  dared  to  sit  at  her  side;  he 
remained  standing,  ready  to  run  under  the 
branches  at  the  least  alarm,  like  a  nocturnal 
prowler. 

However,  when  he  prepared  to  go,  it  was  she 
who  asked,  hesitating,  and  in  a  manner  to  be 
hardly  heard: 

"And — you  will  come  back  to-morrow?  " 

Then,  under  his  growing  mustache,  he  smiled 
at  this  sudden  change  of  mind  and  he  replied: 

"  Yes,  surely. — To-morrow  and  every  night. — 
Every  night  when  we  shall  not  have  to  work  in 
Spain. — I  will  come — " 


Ramuntcho.  99 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Ramuntcho's  lodging  place  was,  in  the  house 
of  his  mother  and  above  the  stable,  a  room  neatly 
whitewashed ;  he  had  there  his  bed,  always  clean 
and  white,  but  where  smuggling  gave  him  few 
hours  for  sleep.  Books  of  travel  or  cosmogra- 
phy, which  the  cure  of  the  parish  lent  to  him, 
posed  on  his  table — unexpected  in  this  house. 
The  portraits,  framed,  of  different  saints,  or- 
namented the  walls,  and  several  pelota-players' 
gloves  were  hanging  from  the  beams  of  the 
ceiling, — long  gloves  of  wicker  and  of  leather 
which  seemed  rather  implements  of  hunting  or 
fishing. 

Franchita,  at  her  return  to  her  country,  had 
bought  back  this  house,  which  was  that  of  her 
deceased  parents,  with  a  part  of  the  sum  given 
to  her  by  the  stranger  at  the  birth  of  her  son. 
She  had  invested  the  rest;  then  she  worked  at 
making  gowns  or  at  ironing  linen  for  the  people 
of  Etchezar,  and  rented,  to  farmers  of  land  near 
by,  two  lower  rooms,  with  the  stable  where 
they  placed  their  cows  and  their  sheep. 

Different  familiar,  musical  sounds  rocked  Ra- 


IOO  Ramuntcho. 

muntcho  in  his  bed.  First,  the  constant  roar  of 
a  near-by  torrent ;  then,  at  times,  songs  of  night- 
ingales, salutes  to  the  dawn  of  divers  birds. 
And,  in  this  spring  especially,  the  cows,  his  neigh- 
bors, excited  doubtless  by  the  smell  of  newmown 
hay,  moved  all  night,  were  agitated  in  dreams, 
making  their  bells  tintillate  continually. 

Often,  after  the  long  expeditions  at  night,  he 
regained  his  sleep  in  the  afternoon,  extended  in 
the  shade  in  some  corner  of  moss  and  grass.  Like 
the  other  smugglers,  he  was  not  an  early  riser 
for  a  village  boy,  and  he  woke  up  sometimes 
long  after  daybreak,  when  already,  between  the 
disjointed  planks  of  his  flooring,  rays  of  a  vivid 
and  gay  light  came  from  the  stable  below, — the 
door  of  which  remained  open  always  to  the  rising 
sun  after  the  departure  of  the  cattle  to  their 
pastures.  Then,  he  went  to  his  window,  pushed 
open  the  little,  old  blinds  made  of  massive  chest- 
nut wood  painted  in  olive,  and  leaned  on  his 
elbows,  placed  on  the  sill  of  the  thick  wall,  to 
look  at  the  clouds  or  at  the  sun  of  the  new 
morning. 

What  he  saw,  around  his  house,  was  green, 
green,  magnificently  green,  as  are  in  the  spring 
all  the  corners  of  that  land  of  shade  and  of  rain. 
The  ferns  which,  in  the  autumn,  have  so  warm 
a  rusty  color,  were  now,  in  this  April,  in  the 


Ramuntcho.  101 

glory  of  their  greenest  freshness  and  covered  the 
slopes  of  the  mountains  as  with  an  immense 
carpet  of  curly  wool,  where  foxglove  flowers 
made  pink  spots.  In  a  ravine,  the  torrent  roared 
under  branches.  Above,  groups  of  oaks  and  of 
beeches  clung  to  the  slopes,  alternating  with 
prairies;  then,  above  this  tranquil  Eden,  toward 
the  sky,  ascended  the  grand,  denuded  peak  of  the 
Gizune,  sovereign  hill  of  the  region  of  the 
clouds.  And  one  perceived  also,  in  the  back- 
ground, the  church  and  the  houses —  that  vil- 
lage of  Etchezar,  solitary  and  perched  high  on 
one  of  the  Pyrenean  cliffs,  far  from  everything, 
far  from  the  lines  of  communication  which  have 
revolutionized  and  spoiled  the  lowlands  of  the 
shores;  sheltered  from  curiosity,  from  the  pro- 
fanation of  strangers,  and  living  still  its  Basque 
life  of  other  days. 

Ramuntcho's  awakenings  were  impregnated, 
at  this  window,  with  peace  and  humble  serenity. 
They  were  full  of  joy,  his  awakenings  of  a  man 
engaged,  since  he  had  the  assurance  of  meeting 
Gracieuse  at  night  at  the  promised  place.  The 
vague  anxieties,  the  undefined  sadness,  which 
accompanied  in  him  formerly  the  daily  return  of 
his  thoughts,  had  fled  for  a  time,  dispelled  by  the 
reminiscence  and  the  expectation  of  these  meet- 
ings ;  his  life  was  all  changed ;  as  soon  as  his  eyes 


IO2  Ramuntcho. 

were  opened  he  had  the  impression  of  a  mystery 
and  of  an  immense  enchantment,  enveloping  him 
in  the  midst  of  this  verdure  and  of  these  April 
flowers.  And  this  peace  of  spring,  thus  seen 
every  morning,  seemed  to  him  every  time  a  new 
thing,  very  different  from  what  it  had  been  in 
the  previous  years,  infinitely  sweet  to  his  heart 
and  voluptuous  to  his  flesh,  having  unfathomable 
and  ravishing  depths, 


Ramuntcho.  103 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

It  is  Easter  night,  after  the  village  bells  have 
ceased  to  mingle  in  the  air  so  many  holy  vibra- 
tions that  came  from  Spain  and  from  France.  .  . 

Seated  on  the  bank  of  the  Bidassoa,  Ramunt- 
cho and  Florentine  watch  the  arrival  of  a  bark. 
A  great  silence  now,  and  the  bells  sleep.  The 
tepid  twilight  has  been  prolonged  and,  in  breath- 
ing, one  feels  the  approach  of  summer. 

As  soon  as  the  night  falls,  it  must  appear  from 
the  coast  of  Spain,  the  smuggling  bark,  bringing 
the  very  prohibited  phosphorus.  And,  without 
its  touching  the  shore,  they  must  go  to  get  that 
merchandise,  by  advancing  on  foot  in  the  bed  of 
the  river,  with  long,  pointed  sticks  in  their  hands, 
in  order  to  assume,  if  perchance  they  were  caught, 
airs  of  people  fishing  innocently  for  "  platuches." 

The  water  of  the  Bidassoa  is  to-night  an  im- 
movable and  clear  mirror,  a  little  more  luminous 
than  the  sky,  and  in  this  mirror,  are  reproduced, 
upside  down,  all  the  constellations,  the  entire 
Spanish  mountain,  carved  in  so  sombre  a  sil- 
houette in  the  tranquil  atmosphere.  Summer, 
summer,  one  has  more  and  more  the  conscious- 


IO4  Ramuntcho. 

ness  of  its  approach,  so  limpid  and  soft  are  the 
first  signs  of  night,  so  much  lukewarm  langour  is 
scattered  over  this  corner  of  the  world,  where  the 
smugglers  silently  manoeuvre. 

But  this  estuary,  which  separates  the  two  coun- 
tries, seems  in  this  moment  to  Ramuntcho  more 
melancholy  than  usual,  more  closed  and  more 
walled-in  in  front  of  him  by  these  black  mount- 
ains, at  the  feet  of  which  hardly  shine,  here  and 
there,  two  or  three  uncertain  lights.  Then,  he  is 
seized  again  by  his  desire  to  know  what  there  is 
beyond,  and  further  still. —  Oh!  to  go  else- 
where!—  To  escape,  at  least  for  a  time,  from 
the  oppresiveness  of  that  land — so  loved,  how- 
ever!—  Before  death,  to  escape  the  oppressive- 
ness of  this  existence,  ever  similar  and  without 
egress.  To  try  something  else,  to  get  out  of  here, 
to  travel,  to  know  things! — 

Then,  while  watching  the  far-off,  terrestrial 
distances  where  the  bark  will  appear,  he  raises 
his  eyes  from  time  to  time  toward  what  happens 
above,  in  the  infinite,  looks  at  the  new  moon,  the 
crescent  of  which,  as  thin  as  a  line,  lowers  and 
will  disappear  soon;  looks  at  the  stars,  the  slow 
and  regulated  march  of  which  he  has  observed, 
as  have  all  the  people  of  his  trade,  during  so 
many  nocturnal  hours;  is  troubled  in  the  depth 
of  his  mind  by  the  proportions  and  the  inconceiv- 
able distances  of  these  things. — 


Ramuntcho.  105 

In  his  village  of  Etchezar,  the  old  priest  who 
had  taught  him  the  catechism,  interested  by  his 
young,  lively  intelligence,  has  lent  books  to  him, 
has  continued  with  him  conversations  on  a  thous- 
and subjects,  and,  on  the  subject  of  the  planets, 
has  given  to  him  the  notion  of  movements  and 
of  immensities,  has  half  opened  before  his  eyes 
the  grand  abyss  of  space  and  duration.  Then, 
in  his  mind,  innate  doubts,  frights  and  despairs 
that  slumbered,  all  that  his  father  had  bequeathed 
to  him  as  a  sombre  inheritance,  all  these  things 
have  taken  a  black  form  which  stands  before  him. 
Under  the  great  sky  of  night,  his  Basque  faith 
has  commenced  to  weaken.  His  mind  is  no 
longer  simple  enough  to  accept  blindly  dogmas 
and  observances,  and,  as  all  becomes  incoherence 
and  disorder  in  his  young  head,  so  strangely  pre- 
pared, the  course  of  which  nobody  is  leading, 
he  does  not  know  that  it  is  wise  to  submit,  with 
confidence  in  spite  of  everything,  to  the  venera- 
ble and  consecrated  formulas,  behind  which  is 
hidden  perhaps  all  that  we  may  ever  see  of  the 
unknowable  truths. 

Therefore,  these  bells  of  Easter  which  the  year 
before  had  filled  him  with  a  religious  and  soft 
sentiment,  this  time  had  seemed  to  him  to  be  a 
music  sad  and  almost  vain.  And  now  that  they 
have  just  hushed,  he  listens  with  undefined  sad- 


io6  Ramuntcho. 

ness  to  the  powerful  noise,  almost  incessant  since 
the  creation,  that  the  breakers  of  the  Bay  of  Bis- 
cay make  and  which,  in  the  peaceful  nights,  may 
be  heard  in  the  distance  behind  the  mountains. 

But  his  floating  dream  changes  again. —  Now 
the  estuary,  which  has  become  quite  dark  and 
where  one  may  no  longer  see  the  mass  of  human 
habitations,  seems  to  him,  little  by  little,  to  be- 
come different;  then,  strange  suddenly,  as 
if  some  mystery  were  to  be  accomplished  in  it; 
he  perceives  only  the  great,  abrupt  lines  of  it, 
which  are  almost  eternal,  and  he  is  surprised  to 
think  confusedly  of  times  more  ancient,  of  an  un- 
precise  and  obscure  antiquity. —  The  Spirit  of 
the  old  ages,  which  comes  out  of  the  soil  at  times 
in  the  calm  nights,  in  the  hours  when  sleep  the 
beings  that  trouble  us  in  the  daytime,  the  Spirit 
of  the  old  ages  is  beginning,  doubtless,  to  soar 
in  the  air  around  him;  Ramuntcho  does  not  de- 
fine this  well,  for  his  sense  of  an  artist  and  of  a 
seer,  that  no  education  has  refined,  has  remained 
rudimentary;  but  he  has  the  notion  and  the 
worry  of  it. —  In  his  head,  there  is  still  and  al- 
ways a  chaos,  which  seeks  perpetually  to  disen- 
tangle itself  and  never  succeeds. —  However, 
when  the  two  enlarged  and  reddened  horns  of 
the  moon  fall  slowly  behind  the  mountain, 
always  black,  the  aspect  of  things  takes,  for  an 


Ramuntcho.  107 

inappreciable  instant,  one  knows  not  what  fero- 
cious and  primitive  airs;  then,  a  dying  impression 
of  original  epochs  which  had  remained,  one 
knows  not  where  in  space,  takes  for  Ramunt- 
cho a  precise  form  in  a  sudden  manner,  and 
troubles  him  until  he  shivers.  He  dreams,  even 
without  wishing  it,  of  those  men  of  the  forests 
who  lived  here  in  the  ages,  in  the  uncalculated 
and  dark  ages,  because,  suddenly,  from  a  point 
distant  from  the  shore,  a  long  Basque  cry  rises 
from  the  darkness  in  a  lugubrious  falsetto,  an 
"  irrintzina,"  the  only  thing  in  this  country  with 
which  he  never  could  become  entirely  familiar. — 
But  a  great  mocking  noise  occurs  in  the  distance. 
the  crash  of  iron,  whistles :  a  train  from  Paris  to 
Madrid,  which  is  passing  over  there,  behind 
them,  in  the  black  of  the  French  shore.  And 
the  Spirit  of  the  old  ages  folds  its  wings  made  of 
shade  and  vanishes.  Silence  returns:  but  after 
the  passage  of  this  stupid  and  rapid  thing,  the 
Spirit  which  has  fled  reappears  no  more — 

At  last,  the  bark  which  Ramuntcho  awaited 
with  Florentino  appears,  hardly  perceptible  for 
other  eyes  than  theirs,  a  little,  gray  form  which 
leaves  behind  it  slight  ripples  on  this  mirror 
which  is  of  the  color  of  the  sky  at  night  and 
wherein  stars  are  reflected  upside  down.  It  is 
the  well-selected  hour,  the  hour  when  the  cus- 


io8  Ramuntcho. 

toms  officers  watch  badly;  the  hour  also  when 
the  view  is  dimmer,  when  the  last  reflections  of 
the  sun  and  those  of  the  crescent  of  the  moon 
have  gone  out,  and  the  eyes  of  men  are  not  yet 
accustomed  to  darkness. 

Then  to  get  the  prohibited  phosphorus,  they 
take  their  long  fishing  sticks,  and  go  into  the 
water  silently. 


Ramuntcho.  109 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

There  was  a  grand  ball-game  arranged  for  the 
following  Sunday  at  Errihiague,  a  far-distant 
village,  near  the  tall  mountains.  Ramuntcho, 
Arrochkoa  and  Florentino  were  to  play  against 
three  celebrated  ones  of  Spain ;  they  were  to  prac- 
tice that  evening,  limber  their  arms  on  the  square 
of  Etchezar,  and  Gracieuse,  with  other  little  girls 
of  her  age,  had  taken  seats  on  the  granite  benches 
to  look  at  them.  The  girls,  all  pretty;  with  ele- 
gant airs  in  their  pale  colored  waists  cut  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  most  recent  vagary  of  the  sea- 
son. And  they  were  laughing,  these  little  girls, 
they  were  laughing!  They  were  laughing  be- 
cause they  had  begun  laughing,  without  know- 
ing why.  Nothing,  a  word  of  their  old  Basque 
tongue,  without  any  appropriateness,  by  one  of 
them,  and  there  they  were  all  in  spasms  of  laugh- 
ter.—  This  country  is  truly  one  of  the  corners 
of  the  world  where  the  laughter  of  girls  breaks 
out  most  easily,  ringing  like  clear  crystal,  ring- 
ing youthfulness  and  fresh  throats. 

Arrochkoa  had  been  there  for  a  long  time, 
with  the  wicker  glove  at  his  arm,  throwing  alone 


no  Ramuntcho. 

the  pelota  which,  from  time  to  time,  children 
picked  up  for  him.  But  Ramuntcho,  Florentine, 
what  were  they  thinking  of?  How  late  they  were! 
They  came  at  last,  their  foreheads  wet  with  per- 
spiration, their  walk  heavy  and  embarrassed. 
And,  while  the  little,  laughing  girls  questioned 
them,  in  that  mocking  tone  which  girls,  when 
they  are  in  a  troupe,  assume  ordinarily  to  inter- 
pellate boys,  these  smiled,  and  each  one  struck 
his  chest  which  gave  a  metallic  sound. — Through 
paths  of  the  Gizune,  they  had  returned  on  foot 
from  Spain,  heavy  with  copper  coin  bearing  the 
effigy  of  the  gentle,  little  King  Alfonso  XIII.  A 
new  trick  of  the  smugglers:  for  Itchoua's  ac- 
count, they  had  exchanged  over  there  with  profit, 
a  big  sum  of  money  for  this  debased  coin, 
destined  to  be  circulated  at  par  at  the  coming 
fairs,  in  different  villages  of  the  Landes  where 
Spanish  cents  are  current.  They  were  bringing, 
in  their  pockets,  in  their  shirts,  some  forty  kilos 
of  copper.  They  made  all  this  fall  like  rain  on 
the  antique  granite  of  the  benches,  at  the  feet  of 
the  amused  girls,  asking  them  to  keep  and  count 
it  for  them;  then,  after  wiping  their  foreheads 
and  puffing  a  little,  they  began  to  play  and  to 
jump,  being  light  now  and  lither  than  ordinarily, 
their  overload  being  disposed  of. 

Except  three  or  four  children  of  the  school 


Ramuntcho.  1 1 1 

who  ran  like  young  cats  after  the  lost  pelotas, 
there  were  only  the  girls,  seated  in  a  group  on 
the  lowest  one  of  these  deserted  steps,  the  old, 
reddish  stones  of  which  bore  at  this  moment  their 
herbs  and  their  flowers  of  April.  Calico  gowns, 
clear  white  or  pink  waists,  they  were  all  the 
gaiety  of  this  solemnly  sad  place.  Beside  Gra- 
cieuse  was  Pantchika  Dargaignaratz,  another 
fifteen  year  old  blonde,  who  was  engaged  to  Ar- 
rochkoa  and  would  soon  marry  him,  for  he,  being 
the  son  of  a  widow,  had  not  to  serve  in  the  army. 
And,  criticizing  the  players,  placing  in  lines  on 
the  granite  rows  of  piled-up  copper  cents,  they 
laughed,  they  whispered,  in  their  chanted  ac- 
cent, with  ends  of  syllables  in  "rra"  or  in  "rrik," 
making  the  "r's"  roll  so  sharply  that  one  would 
have  thought  every  instant  sparrows  were  beat- 
ing their  wings  in  their  mouths. 

They  also,  the  boys,  were  laughing,  and  they 
came  frequently,  under  the  pretext  of  resting,  to 
sit  among  the  girls.  These  troubled  and  in- 
timidated them  three  times  more  than  the  public, 
because  they  mocked  so! 

Ramuntcho  learned  from  his  little  betrothed 
something  which  he  would  not  have  dared  to 
hope  for:  she  had  obtained  her  mother's  per- 
mission to  go  to  that  festival  of  Erribiague,  see 
the  ball-game  and  visit  that  country,  which  she 


1 1 2  Ramuntcho. 

did  not  know.  It  was  agreed  that  she  should  go 
in  a  carriage,  with  Pantchika  and  Madame  Dar- 
gaignaratz;  and  they  would  meet  over  there; 
perhaps  it  would  be  possible  to  return  all  to- 
gether. 

During  the  two  weeks  since  their  evening  meet- 
ings had  begun,  this  was  the  first  time  when  he 
had  had  the  opportunity  to  talk  to  her  thus  in  the 
day-time  and  before  the  others — and  their  man- 
ner was  different,  more  ceremonious  apparently, 
with,  beneath  it,  a  very  suave  mystery.  It  was  a 
long  time,  also,  since  he  had  seen  her  so  well 
and  so  near  in  the  daylight:  she  was  growing 
more  beautiful  that  spring;  she  was  pretty, 
pretty! — Her  bust  had  become  rounder  and  her 
waist  thinner;  her  manner  gained,  day  by  day, 
an  elegant  suppleness.  She  resembled  her 
brother  still,  she  had  the  same  regular  features, 
the  same  perfect  oval  of  the  face;  but  the  differ- 
ence in  their  eyes  went  on  increasing:  while  those 
of  Arrochkoa,  of  a  blue  green  shade  which 
seemed  fleeting,  avoided  the  glances  of  others, 
hers,  on  the  contrary,  black  pupils  and  lashes, 
dilated  themselves  to  look  at  you  fixedly.  Ra- 
muntcho had  seen  eyes  like  these  in  no  other 
person;  he  adored  the  frank  tenderness  of  them 
and  also  their  anxious  and  profound  questioning. 
Long  before  he  had  become  a  man  and  acces- 


Ramuntcho.  1 1 3 

sible  to  the  trickery  of  the  senses,  those  eyes  had 
caught,  of  his  little,  childish  mind,  all  that  was 
best  and  purest  in  it. — And  now  around  such 
eyes,  the  grand  Transformer,  enigmatic  and 
sovereign,  had  placed  a  beauty  of  flesh  which  ir- 
resistibly called  his  flesh  to  a  supreme  com- 
munion.— 

They  were  made  very  inattentive  to  their 
game,  the  players,  by  the  group  of  little  girls,  of 
white  and  pink  waists,  and  they  laughed  them- 
selves at  not  playing  so  well  as  usual.  Above 
them,  occupying  only  a  small  corner  of  the  old, 
granite  amphitheatre,  ascended  rows  of  empty 
benches  in  ruins;  then,  the  houses  of  Etchezar, 
so  peacefully  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  world ; 
then,  in  fine,  the  obscure,  encumbering  mass  of 
the  Gizune,  filling  up  the  sky  and  mingling  with 
thick  clouds  asleep  on  its  sides.  Clouds  im- 
movable, inoffensive  and  without  a  threat  of  rain ; 
clouds  of  spring,  which  were  of  a  turtle-dove 
color  and  which  seemed  tepid,  like  the  air  of  that 
evening.  And,  in  a  rent,  much  less  elevated 
than  the  summit  predominating  over  this  entire 
site,  a  round  moon  began  to  silver  as  the  day 
declined. 

They  played,  in  the  beautiful  twilight,  until 
the  hour  when  the  first  bats  appeared,  until  the 
hour  when  the  flying  pelota  could  hardly  be  seen 


H4  Ramuntcho. 

in  the  air.  Perhaps  they  felt,  unconsciously,  that 
the  moment  was  rare  and  might  not  be  regained: 
then,  as  much  as  possible,  they  should  prolong 
it — 

And  at  last,  they  went  together  to  take  to 
Itchoua  his  Spanish  coins.  In  two  lots,  they 
had  been  placed  in  two  thick,  reddish  towels 
which  a  boy  and  a  girl  held  at  each  end,  and  they 
walked  in  cadence,  singing  the  tune  of  "  The 
Linen  Weaver." 

How  long,  clear  and  soft  was  that  twilight  of 
April ! — There  were  roses  and  all  sorts  of  flowers 
in  front  of  the  walls  of  the  venerable,  white  houses 
with  brown  or  green  blinds.  Jessamine,  honey- 
suckle and  linden  filled  the  air  with  fragrance. 
For  Gracieuse  and  Ramuntcho,  it  was  one  of 
those  exquisite  hours  which  later,  in  the  an- 
guishing sadness  of  awakenings,  one  recalls  with 
a  regret  at  once  heart-breaking  and  charming. 

Oh!  who  shall  say  why  there  are  on  earth 
evenings  of  spring,  and  eyes  so  pretty  to  look  at, 
and  smiles  of  young  girls,  and  breaths  of  per- 
fumes which  gardens  exhale  when  the  nights  of 
April  fall,  and  all  this  delicious  cajoling  of  life, 
since  it  is  all  to  end  ironically  in  separation,  in 
decrepitude  and  in  death — 


Ramuntcho.  115 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  next  day,  Friday,  was  organized  the  de- 
parture for  this  village  where  the  festival  was  to 
take  place  on  the  following  Sunday.  It  is  situ- 
ated very  far,  in  a  shady  region,  at  the  turn  of  a 
deep  gorge,  at  the  foot  of  very  high  summits. 
Arrochkoa  was  born  there  and  he  had  spent  there 
the  first  months  of  his  life,  in  the  time  when  his 
father  lived  there  as  a  brigadier  of  the  French 
customs;  but  he  had  left  too  early  to  have  re- 
tained the  least  memory  of  it. 

In  the  little  Detcharry  carriage,  Gracieuse, 
Pantchita  and,  with  a  long  whip  in  her  hand, 
Madame  Dargaignaratz,  her  mother,  who  is  to 
drive,  leave  together  at  the  noon  angelus  to  go 
over  there  directly  by  the  mountain  route. 

Ramuntcho,  Arrochkoa  and  Florentino,  who 
have  to  settle  smuggling  affairs  at  Saint-Jean-de 
Luz,  go  by  a  roundabout  way  which  will  bring 
them  to  Erribiague  at  night,  on  the  train  which 
goes  from  Bayonne  to  Burguetta.  To-day,  all 
three  are  heedless  and  happy;  Basque  caps  never 
appeared  above  more  joyful  faces. 

The  night  is  falling  when  they  penetrate,  by 


n6  Ramuntcho. 

this  little  train  of  Burguetta,  into  the  quiet,  interi- 
or country.  The  carriages  are  full  of  a  gay 
crowd,  a  spring  evening  crowd,  returning  from 
some  festival,  young  girls  with  silk  kerchiefs 
around  their  necks,  young  men  wearing  woolen 
caps;  all  are  singing,  laughing  and  kissing.  In 
spite  of  the  invading  obscurity  one  may  still 
distinguish  the  hedges,  white  with  hawthorn,  the 
woods  white  with  acacia  flowers;  into  the  open 
carriages  penetrates  a  fragrance  at  once  violent 
and  suave,  which  the  country  exhales.  And  on 
all  this  white  bloom  of  April,  which  the  night 
little  by  little  effaces,  the  train  throws  in  passing 
a  furrow  of  joy,  the  refrain  of  some  old  song  of 
Navarre,  sung  and  resung  infinitely  by  these 
girls  and  these  boys,  in  the  noise  of  the  wheels 
and  of  the  steam — 

Erribiague!  At  the  doors,  this  name,  which 
makes  all  three  start,  is  cried.  The  singing 
band  had  already  stepped  out,  leaving  them  al- 
most alone  in  the  train,  which  had  become  silent. 
High  mountains  had  made  the  night  very  thick — 
and  the  three  were  almost  sleeping. 

Astounded,  they  jump  down,  in  the  midst  of 
an  obscurity  which  even  their  smugglers'  eyes 
cannot  pierce.  Stars  above  hardly  shine,  so  en- 
cumbered is  the  sky  by  the  overhanging  sum- 
mits. 


Ramuntcho.  1 1 7 

"Where  is  the  village?"  they  ask  of  a  man 
who  is  there  alone  to  receive  them. 

"  Three  miles  from  here  on  the  right." 

They  begin  to  distinguish  the  gray  trail  of  a 
road,  suddenly  lost  in  the  heart  of  the  shade. 
And  in  the  grand  silence,  in  the  humid  coolness 
of  these  valleys  full  of  darkness,  they  walk  with- 
out talking,  their  gaiety  somewhat  darkened  by 
the  black  majesty  of  the  peaks  that  guard  the 
frontier  here. 

They  come,  at  last,  to  an  old,  curved  bridge 
over  a  torrent ;  then,  to  the  sleeping  village  which 
no  light  indicates.  And  the  inn,  where  shines 
a  lamp,  is  near  by,  leaning  on  the  mountain,  its 
base  in  the  roaring  water. 

The  young  men  are  led  into  their  little  rooms 
which  have  an  air  of  cleanliness  in  spite  of  their 
extreme  oldness:  very  low,  crushed  by  their 
enormous  beams,  and  bearing  on  their  white- 
washed walls  images  of  the  Christ,  the  Virgin 
and  the  saints. 

Then,  they  go  down  to  the  supper  tables,  where 
are  seated  two  or  three  old  men  in  old  time  cos- 
tume: white  belt,  black  blouse,  very  short,  with 
a  thousand  pleats.  And  Arrochkoa,  vain  of  his 
parentage,  hastens  to  ask  them  if  they  have  not 
known  Detcharry,  who  was  here  a  brigadier  of 
the  customs  eighteen  years  ago. 


1 1 8  Ramuntcho. 

One  of  the  old  men  scans  his  face: 

"Ah!  you  are  his  son,  I  would  bet!  You  look 
like  him!  Detcharry,  do  I  remember  Detcharry! 
— He  took  from  me  two  hundred  lots  of  mer- 
chandise!— That  does  not  matter,  here  is  my 
hand,  even  if  you  are  his  son!  " 

And  the  old  defrauder,  who  was  the  chief  of  a 
great  band,  without  rancor,  with  effusion,  presses 
Arrochkoa's  two  hands. 

Detcharry  has  remained  famous  at  Erribiague 
for  his  stratagems,  his  ambuscades,  his  captures 
of  contraband  goods,  out  of  which  came,  later, 
his  income  that  Dolores  and  her  children  enjoy. 

And  Arrochkoa  assumes  a  proud  air,  while 
Ramuntcho  lowers  his  head,  feeling  that  he  is  of 
a  lower  condition,  having  no  father. 

"Are  you  not  in  the  customhouse,  as  your 
deceased  father  was?  "  continued  the  old  man 
in  a  bantering  tone. 

"Oh,  no,  not  exactly. — Quite  the  reverse, 
even — " 

"Oh,  well!  I  understand! — Then,  shake  once 
more — and  it's  a  sort  of  revenge  on  Detcharry 
for  me,  to  know  that  his  son  has  gone  into  smug- 
gling like  us ! — " 

They  send  for  cider  and  they  drink  together, 
while  the  old  men  tell  again  the  exploits  and  the 
tricks  of  former  times,  all  the  ancient  tales  of 


Ramuntcho.  119 

nights  in  the  mountains;  they  speak  a  variety  of 
Basque  different  from  that  of  Etchezar,  the  vil- 
lage where  the  language  is  preserved  more  clear- 
ly articulated,  more  incisive,  more  pure,  perhaps. 
Ramuntcho  and  Arrochkoa  are  surprised  by  this 
accent  of  the  high  land,  which  softens  the  words 
and  which  chants  them;  those  white-haired  story 
tellers  seem  to  them  almost  strangers,  whose 
talk  is  a  series  of  monotonous  stanzas,  repeated 
infinitely  as  in  the  antique  songs  expressive  of 
sorrow.  And,  as  soon  as  they  cease  talking,  the 
slight  sounds  in  the  sleep  of  the  country  come 
from  peaceful  and  fresh  darkness.  The  crickets 
chirp;  one  hears  the  torrent  bubbling  at  the  base 
of  the  inn ;  one  hears  the  dripping  of  springs  from 
the  terrible,  overhanging  summits,  carpeted  with 
thick  foliage. — It  sleeps,  the  very  small  village, 
crouched  and  hidden  in  the  hollow  of  a  ravine, 
and  one  has  the  impression  that  the  night  here 
is  a  night  blacker  than  elsewhere  and  more 
mysterious. 

"  In  truth,"  concludes  the  old  chief,  "  the 
customhouse  and  smuggling,  at  bottom,  re- 
semble each  other ;  it  is  a  game  where  the  smart- 
est wins,  is  it  not?  I  will  even  say  that,  in  my 
own  opinion,  an  officer  of  customs,  clever  and 
bold,  a  customs  officer  like  your  father,  for  exam- 
ple, is  as  worthy  as  any  of  us !  " 


i2o  Ramuntcho. 

After  this,  the  hostess  having  come  to  say  that 
it  was  time  to  put  out  the  lamp — the  last  lamp 
still  lit  in  the  village — they  go  away,  the  old  de- 
frauders.  Ramuntcho  and  Arrochkoa  go  up 
to  their  rooms,  lie  down  and  sleep,  always  in  the 
chirp  of  the  crickets,  always  in  the  sound  of  fresh 
waters  that  run  or  that  fall.  And  Ramuntcho, 
as  in  his  house  at  Etchezar,  hears  vaguely  during 
his  sleep  the  tinkling  of  bells,  attached  to  the 
necks  of  cows  moving  in  a  dream,  under  him,  in 
the  stable. 


Ramuntcho.  121 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Now  they  open,  to  the  beautiful  April  morning, 
the  shutters  of  their  narrow  windows,  pierced  like 
portholes  in  the  thickness  of  the  very  old  wall. 

And  suddenly,  it  is  a  flood  of  light  that  dazzles 
their  eyes.  Outside,  the  spring  is  resplendent. 
Never  had  they  seen,  before  this,  summits  so 
high  and  so  near.  But  along  the  slopes  full  of 
leaves,  along  the  mountains  decked  with  trees, 
the  sun  descends  to  radiate  in  this  valley  on  the 
whiteness  of  the  village,  on  the  kalsomine  of  the 
ancient  houses  with  green  shutters. 

Both  awakened  with  veins  full  of  youth  and 
hearts  full  of  joy.  They  have  formed  the  project 
this  morning  to  go  into  the  country,  to  the  house 
of  Madame  Dargaignaratz's  cousins,  and  see  the 
two  little  girls,  who  must  have  arrived  the  night 
before  in  the  carriage,  Gracieuse  and  Pantchika. 
— After  a  glance  at  the  ball-game  square,  where 
they  shall  return  to  practice  in  the  afternoon,  they 
go  on  their  way  through  small  paths,  magnifi- 
cently green,  hidden  in  the  depths  of  the  valleys, 
skirting  the  cool  torrents.  The  foxglove  flowers 


122  Ramuntcho. 

start  everywhere  like  long,  pink  rockets  above 
the  light  and  infinite  mass  of  ferns. 

It  is  at  a  long  distance,  it  seems,  that  house  of 
the  Olhagarray  cousins,  and  they  stop  from  time 
to  time  to  ask  the  way  from  shepherds,  or  they 
knock  at  the  doors  of  solitary  houses,  here  and 
there,  under  the  cover  of  branches.  They  had 
never  seen  Basque  houses  so  old  nor  so  primitive, 
under  the  shade  of  chestnut  trees  so  tall. 

The  ravines  through  which  they  advance  are 
strangely  enclosed.  Higher  than  all  these  woods 
of  oaks  and  of  beeches,  which  seem  as  if  suspend- 
ed above,  appear  ferocious,  denuded  summits,  a 
zone  abrupt  and  bald,  sombre  brown,  making 
points  in  the  violent  blue  of  the  sky.  But  here, 
underneath,  is  the  sheltered  and  mossy  region, 
green  and  deep,  which  the  sun  never  burns  and 
where  April  has  hidden  its  luxury,  freshly  superb. 

And  they  also,  the  two  who  are  passing 
through  these  paths  of  foxglove  and  of  fern, 
participate  in  this  splendor  of  spring. 

Little  by  little,  in  their  enjoyment  at  being 
there,  and  under  the  influence  of  this  ageless 
place,  the  old  instincts  to  hunt  and  to  destroy  are 
lighted  in  the  depths  of  their  minds.  Arrochkoa, 
excited,  leaps  from  right  to  left,  from  left  to  right, 
breaks,  uproots  grasses  and  flowers;  troubles 
about  everything  that  moves  in  the  green  foliage, 


Ramuntcho.  123 

about  the  lizards  that  might  be  caught,  about 
the  birds  that  might  be  taken  out  of  their  nests, 
and  about  the  beautiful  trout  swimming  in  the 
water;  he  jumps,  he  leaps;  he  wishes  he  had 
fishing  lines,  sticks,  guns;  truly  he  reveals  his 
savagery  in  the  bloom  of  his  robust  eighteen 
years. — Ramuntcho  calms  himself  quickly;  after 
breaking  a  few  branches,  plucking  a  few  flowers, 
he  begins  to  meditate ;  and  he  thinks — 

Here  they  are  stopped  now  at  a  cross-road 
where  no  human  habitation  is  visible.  Around 
them  are  gorges  full  of  shade  wherein  grand 
oaks  grow  thickly,  and  above,  everywhere,  a 
piling  up  of  mountains,  of  a  reddish  color  burned 
by  the  sun.  There  is  nowhere  an  indication  of 
the  new  times ;  there  is  an  absolute  silence,  some- 
thing like  the  peace  of  the  primitive  epochs.  Lift- 
ing their  heads  toward  the  brown  peaks,  they 
perceive  at  a  long  distance  persons  walking  on 
invisible  paths,  pushing  before  them  donkeys  of 
smugglers:  as  small  as  insects  at  such  a  distance, 
are  these  silent  passers-by  on  the  flank  of  the 
gigantic  mountain;  Basques  of  other  times,  al- 
most confused,  as  one  looks  at  them  from  this 
place,  with  this  reddish  earth  from  which  they 
came — and  where  they  are  to  return,  after  having 
lived  like  their  ancestors  without  a  suspicion  of 
the  things  of  our  times,  of  the  events  of  other 
places — 


124  Ramuntcho. 

They  take  off  their  caps,  Arrochkoa  and  Ra- 
muntcho, to  wipe  their  foreheads;  it  is  so  warm 
in  these  gorges  and  they  have  run  so  much, 
jumped  so  much,  that  their  entire  bodies  are  in 
a  perspiration.  They  are  enjoying  themselves, 
but  they  would  like  to  come,  nevertheless,  near 
the  two  little,  blonde  girls  who  are  waiting  for 
them.  But  of  whom  shall  they  ask  their  way 
now,  since  there  is  no  one? — 

"Ave  Maria,"  cries  at  them  from  the  thick- 
ness of  the  branches  an  old,  rough  voice. 

And  the  salutation  is  prolonged  by  a  string  of 
words  spoken  in  a  rapid  decrescendo,  quick; 
quick;  a  Basque  prayer  rattled  breathlessly,  be- 
gun very  loudly,  then  dying  at  the  finish.  And 
an  old  beggar  comes  out  of  the  fern,  all  earthy, 
all  hairy,  all  gray,  bent  on  his  stick  like  a  man  of 
the  woods. 

"  Yes,"  says  Arrochkoa,  putting  his  hand  in 
his  pocket,  "but  you  must  take  us  to  the  Olha- 
garray  house." 

"  The  Olhagarray  house,"  replies  the  old  man. 
"  I  have  come  from  it,  my  children,  and  you  are 
near  it." 

In  truth,  how  had  they  failed  to  see,  at  a 
hundred  steps  further,  that  black  gable  among 
branches  of  chestnut  trees? 

At  a  point  where  sluices  rustle,  it  is  bathed  by 


Ramuntcho.  125 

a  torrent,  that  Olhagarray  house,  antique  and 
large,  among  antique  chestnut  trees.  Around. 
the  red  soil  is  denuded  and  furrowed  by  the 
waters  of  the  mountain;  enormous  roots  are 
interlaced  in  it  like  monstrous  gray  serpents; 
and  the  entire  place,  overhung  on  all  sides  by  the 
Pyrenean  masses,  is  rude  and  tragic. 

But  two  young  girls  are  there,  seated  in  the 
shade;  with  blonde  hair  and  elegant  little  pink 
waists;  astonishing  little  fairies,  very  modern  in 
the  midst  of  the  ferocious  and  old  scenes. — 
They  rise,  with  cries  of  joy,  to  meet  the  visitors. 

It  would  have  been  better,  evidently,  to  enter 
the  house  and  salute  the  old  people.  But  the 
boys  say  to  themselves  that  they  have  not  been 
seen  coming,  and  they  prefer  to  sit  near  their 
sweethearts,  by  the  side  of  the  brook,  on  the 
gigantic  roots.  And,  as  if  by  chance,  the  two 
couples  manage  not  to  bother  one  another,  to 
remain  hidden  from  one  another  by  rocks,  by 
branches. 

There  then,  they  talk  at  length  in  a  low  voice, 
Arrochkoa  with  Pantchika,  Ramuntcho  with 
Gracieuse.  What  can  they  be  saying,  talking  so 
much  and  so  quickly? 

Although  their  accent  is  less  chanted  than 
that  of  the  highland,  which  astonished  them 
yesterday,  one  would  think  they  were  speaking 


126  Ramuntcho. 

scanned  stanzas,  in  a  sort  of  music,  infinitely 
soft,  where  the  voices  of  the  boys  seem  voices  oi 
children. 

What  are  they  saying  to  one  another,  talking 
so  much  and  so  quickly,  beside  this  torrent,  in 
this  harsh  ravine,  under  the  heavy  sun  of  noon? 
What  they  are  saying  has  not  much  sense;  it  is 
a  sort  of  murmur  special  to  lovers,  something 
like  the  special  song  of  the  swallows  at  nesting 
time.  It  is  childish,  a  tissue  of  incoherences  and 
repetitions.  No,  what  they  are  saying  has  not 
much  sense — unless  it  be  what  is  most  sublime 
in  the  world,  the  most  profound  and  truest  things 
which  may  be  expressed  by  terrestrial  words. — 
It  means  nothing,  unless  it  be  the  eternal  and 
marvellous  hymn  for  which  alone  has  been 
created  the  language  of  men  and  beasts,  and  in 
comparison  with  which  all  is  empty,  miserable 
and  vain. 

The  heat  is  stifling  in  the  depth  of  that  gorge, 
so  shut  in  from  all  sides;  in  spite  of  the  shade  of 
the  chestnut  trees,  the  rays,  that  the  leaves  sift, 
burn  still.  And  this  bare  earth,  of  a  reddish 
color,  the  extreme  oldness  of  this  nearby  house, 
the  antiquity  of  these  trees,  give  to  the  sur- 
roundings, while  the  lovers  talk,  aspects  some- 
what harsh  and  hostile. 

Ramuntcho  has  never  seen  his  little   friend 


Ramuntcho.  127 

made  so  pink  by  the  sun:  on  her  cheeks,  there 
is  the  beautiful,  red  blood  which  flushes  the  skin, 
the  fine  and  transparent  skin;  she  is  pink  as  the 
foxglove  flowers. 

Flies,  mosquitoes  buzz  in  their  ears.  Now 
Gracieuse  has  been  bitten  on  the  chin,  almost  on 
the  mouth,  and  she  tries  to  touch  it  with  the  end 
of  her  tongue,  to  bite  the  place  with  the  upper 
teeth.  And  Ramuntcho,  who  looks  at  this  too 
closely,  feels  suddenly  a  langour,  to  divert  him- 
self from  which  he  stretches  himself  like  one 
trying  to  awake. 

She  begins  again,  the  little  girl,  her  lip  still 
itching — and  he  again  stretches  his  arms,  throw- 
ing his  chest  backward. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Ramuntcho,  and  why  do 
you  stretch  yourself  like  a  cat? — " 

But  when,  for  the  third  time,  Gracieuse  bites 
the  same  place,  and  shows  again  the  little  tip  of 
her  tongue,  he  bends  over,  vanquished  by  the  ir- 
resistible giddiness,  and  bites  also,  takes  in  his 
mouth,  like  a  beautiful  red  fruit  which  one  fears 
to  crush,  the  fresh  lip  which  the  mosquito  has 
bitten — 

A  silence  of  fright  and  of  delight,  during  which 
both  shiver,  she  as  much  as  he;  she  trembling 
also,  in  all  her  limbs,  for  having  felt  the  contact 
of  the  growing  black  mustache. 


128  Ramuntcho. 

"  You  are  not  angry,  tell  me?  " 

"  No,  my  Ramuntcho. — Oh,  I  am  not  angry, 
no—" 

Then  he  begins  again,  quite  frantic,  and  in 
this  languid  and  warm  air,  they  exchange  for  tlje 
first  time  in  their  lives,  the  long  kisses  of  lovers — 


Ramuntcho.  1 29 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  next  day,  Sunday,  they  went  together 
religiously  to  hear  one  of  the  masses  of  the  clear 
morning,  in  order  to  return  to  Etchezar  the  same 
day,  immediately  after  the  grand  ball-game.  It 
was  this  return,  much  more  than  the  game,  that 
interested  Gracieuse  and  Ramuntcho,  for  it  was 
their  hope  that  Pantchika  and  her  mother  would 
remain  at  Erribiague  while  they  would  go, 
pressed  against  each  other,  in  the  very  small 
carriage  of  the  Detcharry  family,  under  the  in- 
dulgent and  slight  watchfulness  of  Arrochkoa, 
five  or  six  hours  of  travel,  all  three  alone,  on  the 
spring  roads,  under  the  new  foliage,  with  amusing 
halts  in  unknown  villages — 

At  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  that 
beautiful  Sunday,  the  square  was  encumbered  by 
mountaineers  come  from  all  the  summits,  from 
all  the  savage,  surrounding  hamlets.  It  was  an 
international  match,  three  players  of  France 
against  three  of  Spain,  and,  in  the  crowd  of  look- 
ers-on, the  Spanish  Basques  were  more  numer- 
ous; there  were  large  sombreros,  waistcoats  and 
gaiters  of  the  olden  time. 


130  Ramuntcho. 

The  judges  of  the  two  nations,  designated  by 
chance,  saluted  each  other  with  a  superannuated 
politeness,  and  the  match  began,  in  profound 
silence,  under  an  oppressive  sun  which  annoyed 
the  players,  in  spite  of  their  caps,  pulled  down 
over  their  eyes. 

Ramuntcho  soon,  and  after  him  Arrochkoa, 
were  acclaimed  as  victors.  And  people  looked 
at  the  two  little  strangers,  so  attentive,  in  the  first 
row,  so  pretty  also  with  their  elegant  pink  waists, 
and  people  said:  "They  are  the  sweethearts  of 
the  two  good  players."  Then  Gracieuse,  who 
heard  everything,  felt  proud  of  Ramuntcho. 

Noon.  They  had  been  playing  for  almost  an 
hour.  The  old  wall,  with  its  summit  curved  like 
a  cupola,  was  cracking  from  dryness  and  from 
heat,  under  its  paint  of  yellow  ochre.  The  grand 
Pyrenean  masses,  nearer  here  than  at  Etchezar, 
more  crushing  and  more  high,  dominated  from 
everywhere  these  little,  human  groups,  moving 
in  a  deep  fold  of  their  sides.  And  the  sun  fell 
straight  on  the  heavy  caps  of  the  men,  on  the  bare 
heads  of  the  women,  heating  the  brains,  in- 
creasing enthusiasm.  The  passionate  crowd 
yelled,  and  the  pelotas  were  flying,  when,  softly, 
the  angelus  began  to  ring.  Then  an  old  man, 
all  wrinkled,  all  burned,  who  was  waiting  for 
this  signal,  put  his  mouth  to  the  clarion — his  old 


Ramuntcho.  131 

clarion  of  a  Zouave  in  Africa — and  rang  the  call 
to  rest.  And  all  the  women  who  were  seated 
rose;  all  the  caps  fell,  uncovering  hair  black, 
blonde  or  white,  and  the  entire  people  made  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  while  the  players,  with  chests 
and  foreheads  streaming  with  perspiration,  stop- 
ped in  the  heat  of  the  game  and  stood  in  medi- 
tation with  heads  bent — 

At  two  o'clock,  the  game  having  come  to  an 
end  gloriously  for  the  French,  Arrochkoa  and 
Ramuntcho  went  in  their  little  wagon,  accom- 
panied and  acclaimed  by  all  the  young  men  of 
Erribiague;  then  Gracieuse  sat  between  the  two, 
and  they  started  for  their  long,  charming  trip, 
their  pockets  full  of  the  gold  which  they  had 
earned,  intoxicated  by  their  joy,  by  the  noise 
and  by  the  sunlight. 

And  Ramuntcho,  who  retained  the  taste  of 
yesterday's  kiss,  felt  like  shouting  to  them: 
"  This  little  girl  who  is  so  pretty,  as  you  see,  is 
mine!  Her  lips  are  mine,  I  had  them  yesterday 
and  will  take  them  again  to-night!  " 

They  started  and  at  once  found  silence  again, 
in  the  shaded  valleys  bordered  by  foxglove  and 
ferns — 

To  roll  for  hours  on  the  small  Pyrenean  roads, 
to  change  places  almost  every  day,  to  traverse 
the  Basque  country,  to  go  from  one  village  to 


132  Ramuntcho. 

another,  called  here  by  a  festival,  there  by  an 
adventure  on  the  frontier — this  was  now  Ra- 
muntcho's  life,  the  errant  life  which  the  ball-game 
made  for  him  in  the  daytime  and  smuggling  in 
the  night-time. 

Ascents,  descents,  in  the  midst  of  a  monot- 
onous display  of  verdure.  Woods  of  oaks  and 
of  beeches,  almost  inviolate,  and  remaining  as 
they  were  in  the  quiet  centuries. — When  he 
passed  by  some  antique  house,  hidden  in  these 
solitudes  of  trees,  he  stopped  to  enjoy  reading, 
above  the  door,  the  traditional  legend  inscribed 
in  the  granite  :  "Ave  Maria!  in  the  year  1600, 
or  in  the  year  1500,  such  a  one,  from  such  a  vil- 
lage, has  built  this  house,  to  live  in  it  with  such 
a  one,  his  wife." 

Very  far  from  all  human  habitation,  in  a  cor- 
ner of  a  ravine,  where  it  was  warmer  than  else- 
where, sheltered  from  all  breezes,  they  met  a  ped- 
dler of  holy  images,  who  was  wiping  his  forehead. 
He  had  set  down  his  basket,  full  of  those  colored 
prints  with  gilt  frames  that  represent  saints  with 
Euskarian  legends,  and  with  which  the  Basques 
like  to  adorn  their  old  rooms  with  white  walls. 
And  he  was  there,  exhausted  from  fatigue  and 
heat,  as  if  wrecked  in  the  ferns,  at  a  turn  of  those 
little,  mountain  routes  which  run  solitary  under 
oaks. 


Ramuntcho.  133 

Gracieuse  came  down  and  bought  a  Holy 
Virgin. 

"  Later,"  she  said  to  Ramuntcho,  "we  shall 
put  it  in  our  house  as  a  souvenir — " 

And  the  image,  dazzling  in  its  gold  frame,  went 
with  them  under  the  long,  green  vaults — 

They  went  out  of  their  path,  for  they  wished 
to  pass  by  a  certain  valley  of  the  Cherry-trees, 
not  in  the  hope  of  finding  cherries  in  it,  in  April, 
but  to  show  to  Gracieuse  the  place,  which  is  re- 
nowned in  the  entire  Basque  country. 

It  was  almost  five  o'clock,  the  sun  was  already 
low,  when  they  reached  there.  It  was  a  shaded 
and  calm  region,  where  the  spring  twilight 
descended  like  a  caress  on  the  magnificence  of 
the  April  foliage.  The  air  was  cool  and  suave, 
fragrant  with  hay,  with  acacia.  Mountains — 
very  high,  especially  toward  the  north,  to  make 
the  climate  there  softer,  surrounded  it  on  all 
sides,  investing  it  with  a  melancholy  mystery  of 
closed  Edens. 

And,  when  the  cherry-trees  appeared,  they 
were  a  gay  surprise,  they  were  already  red. 

There  was  nobody  on  these  paths,  above  which 
the  grand  cherry-trees  extended  like  a  roof,  their 
branches  dripping  with  coral. 

Here  and  there  were  some  summer  houses, 
still  uninhabited,  some  deserted  gardens,  invaded 
by  the  tall  grass  and  the  rose  bushes. 


1 34  Ramuntcho. 

Then,  they  made  their  horse  walk;  then,  each 
one  in  his  turn,  transferring  the  reins  and  stand- 
ing in  the  wagon,  amused  himself  by  eating  these 
cherries  from  the  trees  while  passing  by  them 
and  without  stopping.  Afterward,  they  placed 
bouquets  of  them  in  their  buttonholes,  they  culled 
branches  of  them  to  deck  the  horse's  head, 
the  harness  and  the  lantern.  The  equipage 
seemed  ornamented  for  some  festival  of  youth 
and  of  joy — 

"  Now  let  us  hurry,"  said  Gracieuse.  "  If 
only  it  be  light  enough,  at  least,  when  we  reach 
Etchezar,  for  people  to  see  us  pass,  ornamented 
as  we  are !  " 

As  for  Ramuntcho,  he  thought  of  the  meeting 
place  in  the  evening,  of  the  kiss  which  he  would 
dare  to  repeat,  similar  to  that  of  yesterday,  taking 
Gracieuse's  lip  between  his  lips  like  a  cherry — 


Ramuntcho.  135 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

May !  The  grass  ascends,  ascends  from  every- 
where like  a  sumptuous  carpet,  like  silky  velvet, 
emanating  spontaneously  from  the  earth. 

In  order  to  sprinkle  this  region  of  the  Basques, 
which  remains  humid  and  green  all  summer  like 
a  sort  of  warmer  Brittany,  the  errant  vapors  on 
the  Bay  of  Biscay  assemble  all  in  this  depth  of 
gulf,  stop  at  the  Pyrenean  summits  and  melt  in- 
to rain.  Long  showers  fall,  which  are  some- 
what deceptive,  but  after  which  the  soil  smells  of 
new  flowers  and  hay. 

In  the  fields,  along  the  roads,  the  grasses 
quickly  thicken;  all  the  ledges  of  the  paths  are 
as  if  padded  by  the  magnificent  thickness  of  the 
bent  grass ;  everywhere  is  a  profusion  of  gigantic 
Easter  daisies,  of  buttercups  with  tall  stems,  and 
of  very  large,  pink  mallows  like  those  of  Algeria. 

And,  in  the  long,  tepid  twilights,  pale  iris  or 
blue  ashes  in  color,  every  night  the  bells  of  the 
month  of  Mary  resound  for  a  long  time  in  the 
air,  under  the  mass  of  the  clouds  hooked  to  the 
flanks  of  the  mountains. 

During  the  month  of  May,  with  the  little  group 


1 36  Ramuntcho. 

of  black  nuns,  with  discreet  babble,  with  puerile 
and  lifeless  laughter,  Gracieuse,  at  all  hours, 
went  to  church.  Hastening  their  steps  under 
the  frequent  showers,  they  went  together  through 
the  graveyard,  full  of  roses;  together,  always  to- 
gether, the  little  clandestine  betrothed,  in  light 
colored  gowns,  and  the  nuns,  with  long,  mourning 
veils;  during  the  day  they  brought  bouquets  of 
white  flowers,  daisies  and  sheafs  of  tall  lilies;  at 
night  they  came  to  sing,  in  the  nave  still  more 
sonorous  than  in  the  daytime,  the  softly  joyful 
canticles  of  the  Virgin  Mary: 

"Ave,  Queen  of  the  Angels!  Star  of  the  Sea, 
ave!— " 

Oh,  the  whiteness  of  the  lilies  lighted  by  the 
tapers,  their  white  petals  and  their  yellow  pollen 
in  gold  dust!  Oh,  their  fragrance  in  the  gardens 
or  in  the  church,  during  the  twilights  of  spring ! — 

And  as  soon  as  Gracieuse  entered  there,  at 
night,  in  the  dying  ring  of  the  bells — leaving  the 
pale  half-light  of  the  graveyard  full  of  roses  for 
the  starry  night  of  the  wax  tapers  which  reigned 
already  in  the  church,  quitting  the  odor  of  hay 
and  of  roses  for  that  of  incense  and  of  the  tall, 
cut  lilies,  passing  from  the  lukewarm  and  living 
air  outside  to  that  heavy  and  sepulchral  cold 
that  centuries  amass  in  old  sanctuaries — a 
particular  calm  came  at  once  to  her  mind,  a  pac- 


Ramuntcho.  137 

ifying  of  all  her  desires,  a  renunciation  of  all  her 
terrestrial  joys.  Then,  when  she  had  knelt, 
when  the  first  canticles  had  taken  their  flight 
under  the  vault,  infinitely  sonorous,  little  by  little 
she  fell  into  an  ecstasy,  a  state  of  dreaming,  a 
visionary  state  which  confused,  white  apparitions 
traversed:  whiteness,  whiteness  everywhere; 
lilies,  thousands  of  sheafs  of  lilies,  and  white 
wings,  shivers  of  white  wings  of  angels — 

Oh!  to  remain  for  a  long  time  in  that  state, 
to  forget  all  things,  and  to  feel  herself  pure, 
sanctified  and  immaculate,  under  that  glance, 
ineffably  fascinating  and  soft,  under  that  glance, 
irresistibly  appealing,  which  the  Holy  Virgin,  in 
long  white  vestments,  let  fall  from  the  height  of 
the  tabernacle! — 

But,  when  she  went  outside,  when  the  night 
of  spring  re-enveloped  her  with  tepid  breezes  of 
life,  the  memory  of  the  meeting  which  she  had 
promised  the  day  before,  the  day  before  as  well 
as  every  day,  chased  like  the  wind  of  a  storm 
the  visions  of  the  church.  In  the  expectation  of 
Ramuntcho,  in  the  expectation  of  the  odor  of  his 
hair,  of  the  touch  of  his  mustache,  of  the  taste  of 
his  lips,  she  felt  near  faltering,  like  one  wounded, 
among  the  strange  companions  who  accompa- 
nied her,  among  the  peaceful  and  spectral  black 
nuns. 


138  Ramuntcho. 

And  when  the  hour  had  come,  in  spite  of  all 
her  resolutions  she  was  there,  anxious  and  ardent, 
listening  to  the  least  noise,  her  heart  beating  if  a 
branch  of  the  garden  moved  in  the  night — 
tortured  by  the  least  tardiness  of  the  beloved  one. 

He  came  always  with  his  same  silent  step  of 
a  rover  at  night,  his  waistcoat  on  his  shoulder, 
with  as  much  precaution  and  artifice  as  for  the 
most  dangerous  act  of  smuggling. 

In  the  rainy  nights,  so  frequent  in  the  Basque 
spring-time,  she  remained  in  her  room  on  the 
first  floor,  and  he  sat  on  the  sill  of  the  open  win- 
dow, not  trying  to  go  in,  not  having  the  permis- 
sion to  do  so.  And  they  stayed  there,  she  inside, 
he  outside,  their 'arms  laced,  their  heads  touching 
each  other,  the  cheek  of  one  resting  on  the 
cheek  of  the  other. 

When  the  weather  was  beautiful,  she  jumped 
over  this  low  window-sill  to  wait  for  him  out- 
side, and  their  long  meetings,  almost  without 
words,  occurred  on  the  garden  bench.  Between 
them  there  were  not  even  those  continual 
whisperings  familiar  to  lovers;  no,  there  were 
rather  silences.  At  first  they  did  not  dare  to 
talk,  for  fear  of  being  discovered,  for  the  least 
murmurs  of  voices  at  night  are  heard.  And 
then,  as  nothing  new  threatened  their  lives,  what 
need  had  they  to  talk?  What  could  they  have 


Ramuntcho.  139 

said  which  would  have  been  better  than  the  long 
contact  of  their  joined  hands  and  of  their  heads 
resting  against  each  other? 

The  possibility  of  being  surprised  kept  them 
often  on  the  alert,  in  an  anxiety  which  made  more 
delicious  afterward  the  moments  when  they  for- 
got themselves  more,  their  confidence  having  re- 
turned.— Nobody  frightened  them  as  much  as 
Arrochkoa,  a  smart,  nocturnal  prowler  himself, 
and  always  so  well-informed  about  the  goings 
and  comings  of  Ramuntcho. — In  spite  of  his  in- 
dulgence, what  would  he  do,  if  he  discovered 
them  ? — 

Oh,  the  old  stone  benches,  under  branches,  in 
front  of  the  doors  of  isolated  houses,  when  fall 
the  lukewarm  nights  of  spring! — Theirs  was  a 
real  lovers'  hiding  place,  and  there  was  for  them, 
every  night,  a  music,  for,  in  all  the  stones  of  the 
neighbors'  wall  lived  those  singing  tree-toads, 
beasts  of  the  south,  which,  as  soon  as  night  fell, 
gave  from  moment  to  moment  a  little,  brief  note, 
discreet,  odd,  having  the  tone  of  a  crystal  bell 
and  of  a  child's  throat.  Something  similar  might 
be  produced  by  touching  here  and  there,  with- 
out ever  resting  on  them,  the  scales  of  an  organ 
with  a  celestial  voice.  There  were  tree-toads 
everywhere,  responding  to  one  another  in 
different  tones;  even  those  which  were  under 


1 40  Ramuntcho. 

their  bench,  close  by  them,  reassured  by  their 
immobility,  sang  also  from  time  to  time;  then 
that  little  sound,  brusque  and  soft,  so  near,  made 
them  start  and  smile.  All  the  exquisite,  sur- 
rounding obscurity  was  animated  by  that  music, 
which  continued  in  the  distance,  in  the  mystery 
of  the  leaves  and  of  the  stones,  in  the  depths  of  all 
the  small,  black  holes  of  rocks  or  walls ;  it  seemed 
like  chimes  in  miniature,  or  rather,  a  sort  of  frail 
concert  somewhat  mocking — oh!  not  very 
mocking,  and  without  any  maliciousness — led 
timidly  by  inoffensive  gnomes.  And  this  made 
the  night  more  living  and  more  loving — 

After  the  intoxicated  audacities  of  the  first 
nights,  fright  took  a  stronger  hold  of  them,  and, 
when  one  of  them  had  something  special  to  say, 
one  led  the  other  by  the  hand  without  talking; 
this  meant  that  they  had  to  walk  softly,  softly, 
like  marauding  cats,  to  an  alley  behind  the  house 
where  they  could  talk  without  fear. 

"  Where  shall  we  live,  Gracieuse?  "  asked  Ra- 
muntcho one  night. 

"At  your  house,  I  had  thought." 

"Ah!  yes,  so  thought  I — only  I  thought  it 
would  make  you  sad  to  be  so  far  from  the  parish, 
from  the  church  and  the  square — " 

"Oh — with  you,  I  could  find  anything  sad? — " 

"Then,  we  would  send  awav  those  who  live 


Ramuntcho.  141 

on  the  first  floor  and  take  the  large  room  which 
opens  on  the  road  to  Hasparitz — " 

It  was  an  increased  joy  for  him  to  know  that 
Gracieuse  would  accept  his  house,  to  be  sure  that 
she  would  bring  the  radiance  of  her  presence  in- 
to that  old,  beloved  home,  and  that  they  would 
make  their  nest  there  for  life — 


142  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Here  come  the  long,  pale  twilights  of  June, 
somewhat  veiled  like  those  of  May,  less  uncertain, 
however,  and  more  tepid  still.  In  the  gardens, 
the  rose  laurel  which  is  beginning  to  bloom  in 
profusion  is  becoming  already  magnificently 
pink.  At  the  end  of  each  work  day,  the  good 
folks  sit  outside,  in  front  of  their  doors,  to  look 
at  the  night  falling — the  night  which  soon  con- 
fuses, under  the  vaults  of  the  plane-trees,  their 
groups  assembled  for  benevolent  rest.  And  a 
tranquil  melancholy  descends  over  villages,  in 
those  interminable  evenings — 

For  Ramuntcho,  this  is  the  epoch  when  smug- 
gling becomes  a  trade  almost  without  trouble, 
with  charming  hours,  marching  toward  summits 
through  spring  clouds ;  crossing  ravines,  wander- 
ing in  lands  of  springs  and  of  wild  fig-trees ;  sleep- 
ing, waiting  for  the  agreed  hour,  with  carbineers 
who  are  accomplices,  on  carpets  of  mint  and 
pinks. — The  good  odor  of  plants  impregnated 
his  clothes,  his  waistcoat  which  he  never  wore, 
but  used  as  a  pillow  or  a  blanket — and  Gracieuse 
would  say  to  him  at  night:  "  I  know  where  you 


Ramuntcho.  143 

went  last  night,  for  you  smell  of  mint  of  the 
mountain  above  Mendizpi" — or:  "You  smell  of 
absinthe  of  the  Subernoa  morass." 

Gracieuse  regretted  the  month  of  Mary,  the 
offices  of  the  Virgin  in  the  nave,  decked  with 
white  flowers.  In  the  twilights  without  rain, 
with  the  sisters  and  some  older  pupils  of  their 
class,  she  sat  under  the  porch  of  the  church, 
against  the  low  wall  of  the  graveyard  from  which 
the  view  plunges  into  the  valleys  beneath.  There 
they  talked,  or  played  the  childish  games  in 
which  nuns  indulge. 

There  were  also  long  and  strange  meditations, 
meditations  to  which  the  fall  of  day,  the  prox- 
imity of  the  church,  of  the  tombs  and  of  their 
flowers,  gave  soon  a  serenity  detached  from 
material  things  and  as  if  free  from'  all  alliance 
with  the  senses.  In  her  first  mystic  dreams  as  a 
little  girl, — inspired  especially  by  the  pompous 
rites  of  the  cult,  by  the  voice  of  the  organ,  the 
white  bouquets,  the  thousand  flames  of  the  wax 
tapers — only  images  appeared  to  her — very 
radiant  images,  it  is  true:  altars  resting  on  mists, 
golden  tabernacles  where  music  vibrated  and 
where  fell  grand  flights  of  angels.  But  those 
visions  gave  place  now  to  ideas:  she  caught  a 
glimpse  of  that  peace  and  that  supreme  renunci- 
ation which  the  certainty  of  an  endless  celes- 
tial life,  gives ;  she  conceived,  in  a  manner  more 


144  Ramuntcho. 

elevated  than  formerly,  the  melancholy  joy  of 
abandoning  everything  in  order  to  become  an 
impersonal  part  of  that  entirety  of  nuns,  white, 
or  blue,  or  black,  who,  from  the  innumerable 
convents  of  earth,  make  ascend  toward  heaven 
an  immense  and  perpetual  intercession  for  the 
sins  of  the  world — 

However,  as  soon  as  night  had  fallen  quite, 
the  course  of  her  thoughts  came  down  every 
evening  fatally  toward  intoxicating  and  mortal 
things.  Her  wait,  her  feverish  wait,  began, 
more  impatient  from  moment  to  moment.  She 
felt  anxious  that  her  cold  companions  with  black 
veils  should  return  into  the  sepulchre  of  their 
convent  and  that  she  should  be  alone  in  her 
room,  free  at  last,  in  the  house  fallen  asleep,  ready 
to  open  her  window  and  listen  to  the  slight  noise 
of  Ramuntcho's  footsteps. 

The  kiss  of  lovers,  the  kiss  on  the  lips,  was 
now  a  thing  possessed  and  of  which  they  had  not 
the  strength  to  deprive  themselves.  And  they 
prolonged  it  a  great  deal,  not  wishing,  through 
charming  scruples,  to  accord  more  to  each 
other. 

Anyway,  if  the  intoxication  which  they  gave 
to  each  other  thus  was  a  little  too  carnal,  there 
was  between  them  that  absolute  tenderness,  in- 
finite, unique,  by  which  all  things  are  elevated 
and  purified. 


Ramuntcho.  145 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Ramuntcho,  that  evening,  had  come  to  the 
meeting  place  earlier  than  usual — with  more 
hesitation  also  in  his  walk,  for  one  risks,  on  these 
June  evenings,  to  find  girls  belated  along  the 
paths,  or  boys  behind  the  hedges  on  love  ex- 
peditions. 

And  by  chance  she  was  already  alone,  looking 
outside,  without  waiting  for  him,  however. 

At  once  she  noticed  his  agitated  demeanor 
and  guessed  that  something  new  had  happened. 
Not  daring  to  come  too  near,  he  made  a  sign 
to  her  to  come  quickly,  jump  over  the  window- 
sill,  and  meet  him  in  the  obscure  alley  where  they 
talked  without  fear.  Then,  as  soon  as  she  was 
near  him,  in  the  nocturnal  shade  of  the  trees,  he 
put  his  arm  around  her  waist  and  announced  to 
her,  brusquely,  the  great  piece  of  news  which, 
since  the  morning,  troubled  his  young  head  and 
that  of  Franchita,  his  mother. 

"  Uncle  Ignacio  has  written." 

"True?     Uncle  Ignacio!" 

She  knew  that  that  adventurous  uncle,  that 
American  uncle,  who  had  disappeared  for  so 


146  Ramuntcho. 

many  years,  had  never  thought  until  now  of  send- 
ing more  than  a  strange  good-day  by  a  passing 
sailor. 

"Yes!  And  he  says  that  he  has  property 
there,  which  requires  attention,  large  prairies, 
herds  of  horses;  that  he  has  no  children,  that  if 
I  wish  to  go  and  live  near  him  with  a  gentle 
Basque  girl  married  to  me  here,  he  would  be 
glad  to  adopt  both  of  us. — Oh !  I  think  mother 
will  come  also. — So,  if  you  wish. — We  could 
marry  now. — -You  know  they  marry  people  as 
young  as  we,  it  is  allowed. — Now  that  I  am  to 
be  adopted  by  my  uncle  and  I  shall  have  a  real 
situation  in  life,  your  mother  will  consent,  I 
think. — And  as  for  military  service,  we  shall  not 
care  for  that,  shall  we? — " 

They  sat  on  the  mossy  rocks,  their  heads  some- 
what dizzy,  troubled  by  the  approach  and  the 
unforeseen  temptation  of  happiness.  So,  it  would 
not  be  in  an  uncertain  future,  after  his  term  as  a 
soldier,  it  would  be  almost  at  once;  in  two 
months,  in  one  month,  perhaps,  that  communion 
of  their  minds  and  of  their  flesh,  so  ardently  de- 
sired and  now  so  forbidden,  might  be  ac- 
complished without  sin,  honestly  in  the  eyes  of 
all,  permitted  and  blessed. — Oh!  they  had  never 
looked  at  this  so  closely. — And  they  pressed 
against  each  other  their  foreheads,  made  heavy 


Ramuntcho.  147 

by  too  many  thoughts,  fatigued  suddenly  by  a 
sort  of  too  delicious  delirium. — Around  them, 
the  odor  of  the  flowers  of  June  ascended  from 
the  earth,  filling  the  night  with  an  immense 
suavity.  And,  as  if  there  were  not  enough  scat- 
tered fragrance,  the  jessamine,  the  honeysuckle 
on  the  walls  exhaled  from  moment  to  moment, 
in  intermittent  puffs,  the  excess  of  their  perfume; 
one  would  have  thought  that  hands  swung  in 
silence  censers  in  the  darkness,  for  some  hidden 
festival,  for  some  enchantment  magnificent  and 
secret. 

There  are  often  and  everywhere  very  mysteri- 
ous enchantments  like  this,  emanating  from 
nature  itself,  commanded  by  one  knows  not  what 
sovereign  will  with  unfathomable  designs,  to  de- 
ceive us  all,  on  the  road  to  death — 

"You  do  not  reply,  Gracieuse,  you  say  nothing 
to  me — " 

He  could  see  that  she  was  intoxicated  also, 
like  him,  and  yet  he  divined  by  her  manner  of 
remaining  mute  so  long,  that  shadows  were 
amassing  over  his  charming  and  beautiful  dream. 

"  But,"  she  asked  at  last,  "your  naturalization 
papers.  You  have  received  them,  have  you  not?" 

"  Yes,  they  arrived  last  week,  you  know  very 
well,  and  it  was  you  who  said  that  I  should  apply 
for  them—" 


148  Ramuntcho. 

"Then  you  are  a  Frenchman  to-day. — Then, 
if  you  do  not  do  your  military  service  you  are  a 
deserter." 

"  Yes. — A. deserter,  no;  but  refractory,  I  think 
it  is  called. — It  isn't  better,  since  one  cannot 
come  back. — I  was  not  thinking  of  that — " 

How  she  was  tortured  now  to  have  caused 
this  thought,  to  have  impelled  him  herself  to  this 
act  which  made  soar  over  his  hardly  seen  joy  a 
threat  so  black!  Oh,  a  deserter,  he,  her  Ra- 
muntcho! That  is,  banished  forever  from  the 
dear,  Basque  country! — And  this  departure  for 
America  becomes  suddenly  frightfully  grave, 
solemn,  similar  to  a  death,  since  he  could  not 
possibly  return! — Then,  what  was  there  to  be 
done? — 

Now  they  were  anxious  and  mute,  each  one 
preferring  to  submit  to  the  will  of  the  other,  and 
waiting,  with  equal  fright,  for  the  decision  which 
should  be  taken,  to  go  or  to  remain.  From  the 
depths  of  their  two  young  hearts  ascended,  little 
by  little,  a  similar  distress,  poisoning  the  hap- 
piness offered  over  there,  in  that  America  from 
which  they  would  never  return. — And  the  little, 
nocturnal  censers  of  jessamine,  of  honeysuckle, 
of  linden,  continued  to  throw  into  the  air  ex- 
quisite puffs  to  intoxicate  them;  the  darkness 
that  enveloped  them  seemed  more  and  more 


Ramuntcho.  149 

caressing  and  soft;  in  the  silence  of  the  village 
and  of  the  country,  the  tree-toads  gave,  from, 
moment  to  moment,  their  little  flute-note,  which 
seemed  a  very  discreet  love  call,  under  the  velvet 
of  the  moss;  and,  through  the  black  lace  of  the 
foliage,  in  the  serenity  of  a  June  sky  which  one 
thought  forever  unalterable,  they  saw  scintillate, 
like  a  simple  and  gentle  dust  of  phosphorus,  the 
terrifying  multitude  of  the  worlds. 

The  curfew  began  to  ring,  however,  at  the 
church.  The  sound  of  that  bell,  at  night  es- 
pecially, was  for  them  something  unique  on  earth. 
At  this  moment,  it  was  something  like  a  voice 
bringing,  in  their  indecision,  its  advice,  its 
counsel,  decisive  and  tender.  Mute  still,  they 
listened  to  it  with  an  increasing  emotion,  of  an 
intensity  till  then  unknown,  the  brown  head  of 
the  one  leaning  on  the  brown  head  of  the  other. 
It  said,  the  advising  voice,  the  dear,  protecting 
voice:  "  No,  do  not  go  forever;  the  far-off  lands 
are  made  for  the  time  of  youth;  but  you  must 
be  able  to  return  to  Etchezar:  it  is  here  that  you 
must  grow  old  and  die;  nowhere  in  the  world 
could  you  sleep  as  in  this  graveyard  around  the 
church,  where  one  may,  even  when  lying  under 
the  earth,  hear  me  ring  again — "  They  yielded 
more  and  more  to  the  voice  of  the  bell,  the  two 
children  whose  minds  were  religious  and  primi- 


1 50  Ramuntcho. 

tive.  And  Ramuntcho  felt  on  his  cheek  a  tear 
of  Gracieuse: 

"No,"  he  said  at  last,  "I  will  not  desert;  I 
think  that  I  would  not  have  the  courage  to  do 
it—" 

"  I  thought  the  same  thing  as  you,  my  Ra- 
muntcho," she  said.  "  No,  let  us  not  do  that. — 
I  was  waiting  for  you  to  say  it — " 

Then  he  realized  that  he  also  was  crying,  like 
her — 

The  die  was  cast,  they  would  permit  to  pass  by 
happiness  which  was  within  their  reach,  almost 
under  their  hands;  they  would  postpone  every- 
thing to  a  future  uncertain  and  so  far  off! — 

And  now,  in  the  sadness,  in  the  meditation  of 
the  great  decision  which  they  had  taken,  they 
communicated  to  each  other  what  seemed  best 
for  them  to  do: 

"  We  might,"  she  said,  "write  a  pretty  letter 
to  your  uncle  Ignacio;  write  to  him  that  you 
accept,  that  you  will  come  with  a  great  deal  of 
pleasure  immediately  after  your  military  service; 
you  might  even  add,  if  you  wish,  that  the  one  who 
is  engaged  to  you  thanks  him  and  will  be  ready 
to  follow  you;  but  that  decidedly  you  cannot 
desert." 

"And  why  should  you  not  talk  to  your  mother 
now,  Gatchutcha,  only  to  know  what  she  would 


Ramuntcho.  151 

think? — Because  now,  you  understand,  I  am  not 
as  I  was,  an  abandoned  child — " 

— Slight  steps  behind  them,  in  the  path — and 
above  the  wall,  the  silhouette  of  a  young  man 
who  had  come  on  the  tips  of  his  sandals,  as  if  to 
spy  upon  them! 

"  Go,  escape,  my  Ramuntcho,  we  will  meet 
to-morrow  evening! — " 

In  half  a  second,  there  was  nobody :  he  was  hid- 
den in  a  bush,  she  had  fled  into  her  room. 

Ended  was  their  grave  interview!  Ended  un- 
til when?  Until  to-morrow  or  until  always? — 
On  their  farewells,  abrupt  or  prolonged, 
frightened  or  peaceful,  every  time,  every  night, 
weighed  the  same  uncertainty  of  their  meeting 
again — 


152  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

The  bell  of  Etchezar,  the  same  dear,  old  bell, 
that  of  the  tranquil  curfew,  that  of  the  festivals 
and  that  of  the  agonies,  rang  joyously  in  the 
beautiful  sun  of  June.  The  village  was  decorated 
with  white  cloths,  white  embroideries,  and  the 
procession  of  the  Fete-Dieu  passed  slowly,  on  a 
green  strewing  of  fennel  seed  and  of  reeds  cut 
from  the  marshes. 

The  mountains  seemed  near  and  sombre, 
somewhat  ferocious  in  their  brown  tones,  above 
this  white  parade  of  little  girls  marching  on  a 
carpet  of  cut  leaves  and  grass. 

All  the  old  banners  of  the  church  were  there, 
illuminated  by  that  sun  which  they  had  known 
for  centuries  but  which  they  see  only  once  or 
twice  a  year,  on  the  consecrated  days. 

The  large  one,  that  of  the  Virgin,  in  white  silk 
embroidered  with  pale  gold,  was  borne  by  Gra- 
cieuse,  who  walked  in  white  dress,  her  eyes  lost 
in  a  mystic  dream.  Behind  the  young  girls, 
came  the  women,  all  the  women  of  the  village, 
wearing  black  veils,  including  Dolores  and  Fran- 
chita,  the  two  enemies.  Men,  numerous  enough, 


Ramuntcho.  153 

closed  this  cortege,  tapers  in  their  hands,  heads 
uncovered — but  there  were  especially  gray  hairs, 
faces  with  expressions  vanquished  and  resigned, 
heads  of  old  men. 

Gracieuse,  holding  high  the  banner  of  the 
Virgin,  became  at  this  hour  one  of  the  Illuminati ; 
she  felt  as  if  she  were  marching,  as  after  death, 
toward  the  celestial  tabernacles.  And  when,  at 
instants,  the  reminiscence  of  Ramuntcho's  lips 
traversed  her  dream,  she  had  the  impression,  in 
the  midst  of  all  this  white,  of  a  sharp  stain,  deli- 
cious still.  Truly,  as  her  thoughts  became  more 
elevated  from  day  to  day,  what  brought  her 
back  to  him  was  less  her  senses,  capable  in  her 
of  being  tamed,  than  true,  profound  tenderness, 
the  one  which  resists  time  and  deceptions  of  the 
flesh.  And  this  tenderness  was  augmented  by 
the  fact  that  Ramuntcho  was  less  fortunate  than 
she  and  more  abandoned  in  life,  having  had  no 
father — 


1 54  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

"  Well,  Gatchutcha,  you  have  at  last  spoken  to 
your  mother  of  Uncle  Ignacio?  "  asked  Ramun- 
tcho, very  late,  the  same  night,  in  the  alley  of  the 
garden,  under  rays  of  the  moon. 

"  Not  yet,  I  have  not  dared. — How  could  I  ex- 
plain that  I  know  all  these  things,  since  I  am 
supposed  not  to  talk  with  you  ever,  and  she  has 
forbidden  me  to  do  so? — Think,  if  I  were  to  make 
her  suspicious ! — There  would  be  an  end  to  every- 
thing, we  could  not  see  each  other  again!  I 
would  like  better  to  wait  until  you  left  the 
country,  then  all  would  be  indifferent  to  me — '' 

"  It  is  true ! — let  us  wait,  since  I  am  to  go." 

He  was  going  away,  and  already  they  could 
count  the  evenings  which  would  be  left  to  them. 

Now  that  they  had  permitted  their  immediate 
happiness  to  escape,  the  happiness  offered  to 
them  in  the  prairies  of  America,  it  seemed  prefer- 
able to  them  to  hasten  the  departure  of  Ramun- 
tcho for  the  army,  in  order  that  he  might  return 
sooner.  So  they  had  decided  that  he  would 
enlist  in  the  naval  infantry,  the  only  part  of  the 
service  where  one  may  elect  to  serve  for  a  period 


Ramuntcho.  155 

as  short  as  three  years.  And  as  they  needed,  in 
order  to  be  certain  not  to  be  lacking  in  courage, 
a  precise  epoch,  considered  for  a  long  time  in 
advance,  they  had  fixed  the  end  of  September, 
after  the  grand  series  of  ball-games. 

They  contemplated  this  separation  of  three 
years  duration  with  an  absolute  confidence  in  the 
future,  so  sure  they  thought  they  were  of  each 
other,  and  of  themselves,  and  of  their  imperish- 
able love.  But  it  was,  however,  an  expectation 
which  already  filled  their  hearts  strangely;  it 
threw  an  unforeseen  melancholy  over  things 
which  were  ordinarily  the  most  indifferent,  on 
the  flight  of  days,  on  the  least  indications  of  the 
next  season,  on  the  coming  into  life  of  certain 
plants,  on  the  coming  into  bloom  of  certain 
species  of  flowers,  on  all  that  presaged  the  ar- 
rival and  the  rapid  march  of  their  last  summer. 


1 56  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Already  the  fires  of  St.  John  have  flamed,  joy- 
ful and  red  in  a  clear,  blue  night, — and  the  Spanish 
mountain  seemed  to  burn,  that  night,  like  a  sheaf 
of  straw,  so  many  were  the  bonfires  lighted  on  its 
sides.  It  has  begun,  the  season  of  light,  of  heat 
and  of  storms,  at  the  end  of  which  Ramuntcho 
must  depart. 

And  the  saps,  which  in  the  spring  went  up  so 
quickly,  become  languid  already  in  the  complete 
development  of  the  verdure,  in  the  wide  bloom 
of  the  flowers.  And  the  sun,  more  and  more 
burning,  overheats  all  the  heads  covered  with 
Basque  caps,  excites  ardor  and  passion,  causes 
to  rise  everywhere,  in  those  Basque  villages, 
ferments  of  noisy  agitation  and  of  pleasure. 
While,  in  Spain,  begin  the  grand  bull-fights,  this 
is  here  the  epoch  of  so  many  ball-games,  of  so 
many  fandangoes  danced  in  the  evening,  of  so 
much  pining  of  lovers  in  the  tepid  voluptuousness 
of  nights! — 

Soon  will  come  the  warm  splendor  of  the 
southern  July.  The  Bay  of  Biscay  has  become 


Ramuntcho.  157 

very  blue  and  the  Cantabric  coast  has  for  a  time 
put  on  its  fallow  colors  of  Morocco  or  of  Algeria. 

With  the  heavy  rains  alternates  the  marvel- 
lously beautiful  weather  which  gives  to  the  air 
absolute  limpidities.  And  there  are  days  also 
when  somewhat  distant  things  are  as  if  eaten  by 
light,  powdered  with  sun  dust;  then,  above  the 
woods  and  the  village  of  Etchezar,  the  Gizune, 
very  pointed,  becomes  more  vaporous  and  more 
high,  and,  on  the  sky,  float,  to  make  it  appear 
bluer,  very  small  clouds  of  a  gilded  white  with  a 
little  mother-of-pearl  gray  in  their  shades. 

And  the  springs  run  thinner  and  rarer  under 
the  thickness  of  the  ferns,  and,  along  the  routes, 
go  more  slowly,  driven  by  half  nude  men,  the 
ox-carts  which  a  swarm  of  flies  surrounds. 

At  this  season,  Ramuntcho,  in  the  day-time, 
lived  his  agitated  life  of  a  pelotari,  running  with 
Arrochkoa  from  village  to  village,  to  organize 
ball-games  and  play  them. 

But,  in  his  eyes,  evenings  alone  existed. 

Evenings! — In  the  odorous  and  warm  dark- 
ness of  the  garden,  to  be  seated  very  near  Gra- 
cieuse;  to  put  his  arm  around  her,  little  by  little 
to  draw  her  to  him  and  hold  her  against  his 
breast,  and  remain  thus  for  a  long  time  without 
saying  anything,  his  chin  resting  on  her  hair, 
breathing  the  young  and  healthy  scent  of  her 
body. 


158  Ramimtcho. 

He  enervated  himself  dangerously,  Ramun- 
tcho,  in  these  prolonged  contacts  which  she  did 
not  prohibit.  Anyway,  he  divined  her  sur- 
rendered enough  to  him  now,  and  confident 
enough,  to  permit  everything;  but  he  did  not 
wish  to  attempt  supreme  communion,  through 
childish  reserve,  through  respect  for  his  betrothed, 
through  excess  and  profoundness  of  love.  And 
it  happened  to  him  at  times  to  rise  abruptly,  to 
stretch  himself — in  the  manner  of  a  cat,  she  said, 
as  formerly  at  Erribiague — when  he  felt  a 
dangerous  thrill  and  a  more  imperious  temp- 
tation to  leave  life  with  her  in  a  moment  of  in- 
effable death — 


Ramuntcho.  159 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Franchita,  however,  was  astonished  by  the  un- 
explained attitude  of  her  son,  who,  apparently, 
never  saw  Gracieuse  and  yet  never  talked  of  her. 
Then,  while  was  amassing  in  her  the  sadness  of 
his  coming  departure  for  military  service,  she 
observed  him,  with  her  peasant's  patience  and 
muteness. 

One  evening,  one  of  the  last  evenings,  as  he 
was  going  away,  mysterious  and  in  haste,  long 
before  the  hour  of  the  nocturnal  contraband,  she 
straightened  before  him,  her  eyes  fixed  on  his: 
"Where  are  you  going,  my  son?" 
And  seeing  him  turn  his  head,  blushing  and 
embarrassed,  she  acquired  a  sudden  certainty: 
"  It  is  well,  now  I  know. — Oh !     I  know ! — " 
She  was  moved  even  more  than  he,  at  her 
discovery  of  this  great  secret. — The  idea  had  not 
even  come  to  her  that  it  was  not  Gracieuse,  that 
it  might  be  another  girl.     She  was  too  far-see- 
ing.    And   her   scruples   as   a   Christian   were 
awakened,  her  conscience  was  frightened  at  the 
evil  that  they  might  have  done, — as  rose  from 
the  depth  of  her  heart  a  sentiment  of  which  she 


1 60  Ramuntdho. 

was  ashamed  as  if  it  were  a  crime,  a  sort  of  savage 
joy. — For,  in  fine — if  their  carnal  union  was  ac- 
complished, the  future  of  her  son  was  assured. — 
She  knew  her  Ramuntcho  well  enough  to  know 
that  he  would  not  change  his  mind  and  that  Gra- 
cieuse  would  never  be  abandoned  by  him. 

The  silence  between  them  was  prolonged,  she 
standing  before  him,  barring  the  way: 

"And  what  have  you  done  together?  "  she  de- 
cided to  ask.  "  Tell  me  the  truth,  Ramuntcho, 
what  wrong  have  you  done? — " 

"What  wrong? — Oh!  nothing,  mother,  noth- 
ing wrong,  I  swear  to  you — " 

He  replied  this  without  irritation  at  being 
questioned,  and  bearing  the  look  of  his  mother 
with  eyes  of  frankness.  It  was  true,  and  she 
believed  him. 

But,  as  she  stayed  in  front  of  him,  her  hand  on 
the  door-latch,  he  said,  with  dumb  violence: 

"  You  are  not  going  to  prevent  me  from  going 
to  her,  since  I  shall  leave  in  three  days !  " 

Then,  in  presence  of  this  young  will  in  revolt, 
the  mother,  enclosing  in  herself  the  tumult  of  her 
contradictory  thoughts,  lowered  her  head  and, 
without  a  word,  stood  aside  to  let  him  pass. 


Ramuntcho.  161 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

It  was  their  last  evening,  for,  the  day  before 
yesterday,  at  the  Mayor's  office  of  Saint-Jean- 
de-Luz,  he  had,  with  a  hand  trembling  a  little, 
signed  his  engagement  for  three  years  in  the 
Second  naval  infantry,  whose  garrison  was  a 
military  port  of  the  North. 

It  was  their  last  evening, — and  they  had  said 
that  they  would  make  it  longer  than  usual, — it 
would  last  till  midnight,  Gracieuse  had  decided: 
midnight,  which  in  the  villages  is  an  unseasonable 
and  black  hour,  an  hour  after  which,  she  did  not 
know  why,  all  seemed  to  the  little  betrothed 
graver  and  guiltier. 

In  spite  of  the  ardent  desire  of  their  senses,  the 
idea  had  not  come  to  one  nor  to  the  other  that, 
during  this  last  meeting,  under  the  oppression  of 
parting,  something  more  might  be  attempted. 

On  the  contrary,  at  the  instant  so  full  of  con- 
centration of  their  farewell,  they  felt  more  chaste 
still,  so  eternal  was  their  love. 

Less  prudent,  however,  since  they  had  not  to 
care  for  the  morrow,  they  dared  to  talk  there,  on 
their  lovers'  bench,  as  they  had  never  done 


1 62  Ramuntcho. 

before.  They  talked  of  the  future,  of  a  future 
which  was  for  them  very  distant,  because,  at 
their  age,  three  years  seem  infinite. 

In  three  years,  at  his  return,  she  would  be 
twenty;  then,  if  her  mother  persisted  to  refuse 
in  an  absolute  manner,  at  the  end  of  a  year  she 
would  use  her  right  of  majority,  it  was  between 
them  an  agreed  and  a  sworn  thing. 

The  means  of  correspondence,  during  the 
long  absence  of  Ramuntcho,  preoccupied  them  a 
great  deal:  between  them,  everything  was  so 
complicated  by  obstacles  and  secrets! — Arroch- 
koa,  their  only  possible  intermediary,  had 
promised  his  help;  but  he  was  so  changeable,  so 
uncertain! — Oh,  if  he  were  to  fail! — And  then, 
would  he  consent  to  send  sealed  letters? — If  he 
did  not  consent  there  would  be  no  pleasure  in 
writing. — In  our  time,  when  communications  are 
easy  and  constant,  there  are  no  more  of  these 
complete  separations  similar  to  the  one  which 
theirs  would  be;  they  were  to  say  to  each  other 
a  very  solemn  farewell,  like  the  one  which  the 
lovers  of  other  days  said,  the  lovers  of  the  days 
when  there  were  lands  without  post-offices,  and 
distances  that  frightened  one.  The  fortunate 
time  when  they  should  see  each  other  again  ap- 
peared to  them  situated  far  off,  far  off,  in  the 
depths  of  duration;  yet,  because  of  the  faith 


Ramuntcho.  1 63 

which  they  had  in  each  other,  they  expected  this 
with  a  tranquil  assurance,  as  the  faithful  expect 
celestial  life. 

But  the  least  things  of  their  last  evening  ac- 
quired in  their  minds  a  singular  importance;  as 
this  farewell  came  near,  all  grew  and  was  exag- 
gerated for  them,  as  happens  in  the  expectation 
of  death.  The  slight  sounds  and  the  aspects  of 
the  night  seemed  to  them  particular  and,  in  spite 
of  them,  were  engraving  themselves  forever  in 
their  memory.  The  song  of  the  crickets  had  a 
characteristic  which  it  seemed  to  them  they  had 
never  heard  before.  In  the  nocturnal  sonority, 
the  barking  of  a  watch-dog,  coming  from  some 
distant  farm,  made  them  shiver  with  a  melan- 
choly fright.  And  Ramuntcho  was  to  carry  with 
him  in  his  exile,  to  preserve  later  with  a  desolate 
attachment,  a  certain  stem  of  grass  plucked  from 
the  garden  negligently  and  with  which  he  had 
played  unconsciously  the  whole  evening. 

A  phase  of  their  life  finished  with  that  day:  a 
lapse  of  time  had  occurred,  their  childhood  had 
passed — 

Of  recommendations,  they  had  none  very  long 
to  exchange,  so  intensely  was  each  one  sure  of 
what  the  other  might  do  during  the  separation. 
They  had  less  to  say  to  each  other  than  other 
engaged  people  have,  because  they  knew 


164  Ramuntcho. 

mutually  their  most  intimate  thoughts.  After 
the  first  hour  of  conversation,  they  remained 
hand  in  hand  in  grave  silence,  while  were  con- 
sumed the  inexorable  minutes  of  the  end. 

At  midnight,  she  wished  him  to  go,  as  she  had 
decided  in  advance,  in  her  little  thoughtful  and 
obstinate  head.  Therefore,  after  having  em- 
braced each  other  for  a  long  time,  they  quitted 
each  other,  as  if  the  separation  were,  at  this 
precise  minute,  an  ineluctable  thing  which  it  was 
impossible  to  retard.  And  while  she  returned 
to  her  room  with  sobs  that  he  heard,  he  scaled 
over  the  wall  and,  in  coming  out  of  the  darkness 
of  the  foliage,  found  himself  on  the  deserted 
road,  white  with  lunar  rays.  At  this  first  separa- 
tion, he  suffered  less  than  she,  because  he  was 
going,  because  it  was  he  that  the  morrow,  full  of 
uncertainty,  awaited.  While  he  walked  on  the 
road,  powdered  and  clear,  the  powerful  charm 
of  change,  of  travel,  dulled  his  sensitiveness;  al- 
most without  any  precise  thought,  he  looked  at 
his  shadow,  which  the  moon  made  clear  and 
harsh,  marching  in  front  of  him.  And  the  great 
Gizune  dominated  impassibly  everything,  with 
its  cold  and  spectral  air,  in  all  this  white  radiance 
of  midnight. 


Ramuntcho.  165 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

The  parting  day,  good-byes  to  friends  here  and 
there;  joyful  wishes  of  former  soldiers  returned 
from  the  regiment.  Since  the  morning,  a  sort 
of  intoxication  or  of  fever,  and,  in  front  of  him, 
everything  unthought-of  in  life. 

Arrochkoa,  very  amiable  on  that  last  day,  had 
offered  to  drive  him  in  a  wagon  to  Saint- Jean- 
de-Luz,  and  had  arranged  to  go  at  sunset,  in 
order  to  arrive  there  just  in  time  for  the  night 
train. 

The  night  having  come,  inexorably,  Franchita 
wished  to  accompany  her  son  to  the  square, 
where  the  Detcharry  wagon  was  waiting  for 
him,  and  here  her  face,  despite  her  will,  was 
drawn  by  sorrow,  while  he  straightened  himself, 
in  order  to  preserve  the  swagger  which  becomes 
recruits  going  to  their  regiment: 

"  Make  a  little  place  for  me,  Arrochkoa,"  she 
said  abruptly.  "  I  will  sit  between  you  to  the 
chapel  of  Saint-Bitchentcho;  I  will  return  on 
foot—" 

And  they  started  at  the  setting  sun,  which,  on 


1 66  Ramuntcho. 

them  as  on  all  things,  scattered  the  magnificence 
of  its  gold  and  of  its  red  copper. 

After  a  wood  of  oaks,  the  chapel  of  Saint- 
Bitchentcho  passed,  and  the  mother  wished  to 
remain.  From  one  turn  to  another,  postponing 
every  time  the  great  separation,  she  asked  to  be 
driven  still  farther. 

"  Mother,  when  we  reach  the  top  of  the  Is- 
saritz  slope  you  must  go  down !  "  he  said  tender- 
ly. "  You  hear,  Arrochkoa,  you  will  stop  where 
I  say ;  I  do  not  want  mother  to  go  further — " 

At  this  Issaritz  slope  the  horse  had  himself 
slackened  his  pace.  The  mother  and  the  son, 
their  eyes  burned  with  suppressed  tears,  held  each 
other's  hands,  and  they  were  going  slowly,  slow- 
ly, in  absolute  silence,  as  if  it  were  a  solemn  as- 
cent toward  some  Calvary. 

At  last,  at  the  top  of  the  slope,  Arrochkoa,  who 
seemed  mute  also,  pulled  the  reins  slightly,  with 
a  simple  little :  "  Ho ! — "  discreet  as  a  lugubrious 
signal  which  one  hesitates  to  give — and  the  car- 
riage was  stopped. 

Then,  without  a  word,  Ramuntcho  jumped  to 
the  road,  helped  his  mother  to  descend,  gave  a 
long  kiss  to  her,  then  remounted  briskly  to  his 
seat: 

"Go,  Arrochkoa,  quickly,  race,  let  us  go!" 

And  in  two  seconds,  in  the  rapid  descent,  he 


Ramuntcho.  167 

lost  sight  of  the  one  whose  face  at  last  was  covered 
with  tears. 

Now  they  were  going  away  from  one  another, 
Franchita  and  her  son.  In  different  directions, 
they  were  walking  on  that  Etchezar  road, — in 
the  splendor  of  the  setting  sun,  in  a  region  of 
pink  heather  and  of  yellow  fern.  She  was  going 
up  slowly  toward  her  home,  meeting  isolated 
groups  of  farmers,  flocks  led  through  the  golden 
evening  by  little  shepherds  in  Basque  caps. — 
And  he  was  going  down  quickly,  through  val- 
leys soon  darkened,  toward  the  lowland  where  the 
railway  train  passes — 


1 68  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

At  twilight,  Franchita  was  returning  from 
escorting  her  son  and  was  trying  to  regain  her 
habitual  face,  her  air  of  haughty  indifference,  to 
pass  through  the  village. 

But,  when  she  arrived  in  front  of  the  Detcharry 
house,  she  saw  Dolores  who,  instead  of  going 
in,  as  she  intended,  turned  round  and  stood  at 
the  door  to  see  her  pass.  Something  new,  some 
sudden  revelation  must  have  impelled  her  to  take 
this  attitude  of  aggressive  defiance,  this  expres- 
sion of  provoking  irony, — and  Franchita  then 
stopped,  she  also,  while  this  phrase,  almost  in- 
voluntary, came  through  her  set  teeth: 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  that  woman?  Why 
does  she  look  at  me  so — " 

"  He  will  not  come  to-night,  the  lover,  will  he?" 
responded  the  enemy. 

"Then  you  knew  that  he  came  here  to  see 
your  daughter?  " 

In  truth,  Dolores  knew  this  since  the  morning : 
Gracieuse  had  told  her,  since  no  care  needed  to 
be  taken  of  the  morrow;  Gracieuse  had  told  it 
wearily,  after  talking  uselessly  of  Uncle  Ignacio, 


Ramuntcho.  169 

of  Ramuntcho's  future,  of  all  that  would  serve 
their  cause — 

"  Then  you  knew  that  he  came  here  to  see 
your  daughter?  " 

By  a  reminiscence  of  other  times,  they  re- 
gained instinctively  their  theeing  and  thouing  of 
the  sisters'  school,  those  two  women  who  for 
nearly  twenty  years  had  not  addressed  a  word  to 
each  other.  Why  they  detested  each  other,  they 
hardly  knew;  so  many  times,  it  begins  thus,  with 
nothings,  with  jealousies,  with  childish  rivalries, 
and  then,  at  length,  by  dint  of  seeing  each  other 
every  day  without  talking  to  each  other,  by  dint 
of  casting  at  each  other  evil  looks,  it  ferments 
till  it  becomes  implacable  hatred. — Here  they 
were,  facing  each  other,  and  their  two  voices 
trembled  with  rancor,  with  evil  emotion: 

"  Well,"  replied  the  other,  "you  knew  it  before 
I  did,  I  suppose,  you  who  are  without  shame  and 
sent  him  to  our  house ! — Anyway,  one  can  under- 
stand your  easiness  about  means,  after  what  you 
have  done  in  the  past — " 

And,  while  Franchita,  naturally  much  more 
dignified,  remained  mute,  terrified  now  by  this 
unexpected  dispute  on  the  street,  Dolores  con^ 
tinued: 

"  No.  My  daughter  marrying  that  penniless 
bastard,  think  of  it! — " 


1 70  Ramuntcho. 

"  Well,  I  have  the  idea  that  she  will  marry  him, 
in  spite  of  everything! — Try  to  propose  to  her  a 
man  of  your  choice  and  see — " 

Then,  as  if  she  disdained  to  continue,  she 
went  on  her  way,  hearing  behind  her  the  voice 
and  the  insults  of  the  other  pursuing  her.  All 
her  limbs  trembled  and  she  faltered  at  every  step 
on  her  weakened  legs. 

At  the  house,  now  empty,  what  sadness  she 
found! 

The  reality  of  this  separation,  which  would 
last  for  three  years,  appeared  to  her  under  an 
aspect  frightfully  new,  as  if  she  had  hardly  been 
prepared  for  it — even  as,  on  one's  return  from  a 
graveyard,  one  feels  for  the  first  time,  in  its  fright- 
ful integrity,  the  absence  of  the  cherished  dead — 

And  then,  those  words  of  insult  in  the  street, 
those  words  the  more  crushing  because  she  was 
cruelly  conscious  of  her  sin  with  the  stranger! 
Instead  of  passing  by,  as  she  should  have  done, 
how  had  she  found  the  courage  to  stop  before 
her  enemy  and,  by  a  phrase  murmured  between 
her  teeth,  provoke  this  odious  dispute?  How 
could  she  have  descended  to  such  a  thing,  for- 
gotten herself  thus,  she  who,  for  fifteen  years, 
had  imposed  herself,  little  by  little,  on  the  respect 
of  all  by  her  demeanor,  so  perfectly  dignified. 
Oh.,  to  have  attracted  and  to  have  suffered  the 


Ramuntcho.  171 

insult  of  that  Dolores, — whose  past  was  ir- 
reproachable and  who  had,  in  effect,  the  right  to 
treat  her  with  contempt!  When  she  reflected, 
she  became  frightened  more  and  more  by  that 
sort  of  defiance  of  the  future  which  she  had  had 
the  imprudence  to  hurl;  it  seemed  to  her  that  she 
had  compromised  the  cherished  hope  of  her  son 
in  exasperating  thus  the  hatred  of  that  woman. 

Her  son! — her  Ramuntcho,  whom  a  wagon 
was  carrying  away  from  her  at  this  hour  in  the 
summer  night,  was  carrying  away  from  her  to  a 
long  distance,  to  danger,  to  war! — She  had  as- 
sumed very  heavy  responsibilities  in  directing  his 
life  with  ideas  of  her  own,  with  stubbornness, 
with  pride,  with  selfishness. — And  now,  this 
evening,  she  had,  perhaps,  attracted  misfortune 
to  him,  while  he  was  going  away  so  confident  in 
the  joy  of  his  return! — This  would  be  doubtless 
for  her  the  supreme  chastisement;  she  seemed 
to  hear,  in  the  air  of  the  empty  house,  something 
like  a  threat  of  this  expiation,  she  felt  its  slow 
and  sure  approach. 

Then,  she  said  for  him  her  prayers,  from  a 
heart  harshly  revolted,  because  religion,  as  she 
understood  it,  remained  without  sweetness,  with- 
out consolation  without  anything  confidential  and 
tender.  Her  distress  and  her  remorse  were,  at 
this  moment,  of  so  sombre  a  nature  that  tears, 
benevolent  tears,  came  no  longer  to  her — 


1 72  Ramuntcho. 

And  he,  at  this  same  instant  of  the  night,  con- 
tinued to  descend,  through  darker  valleys,  to- 
ward the  lowland  where  the  trains  pass — car- 
rying away  men  to  a  long  distance,  changing 
and  upsetting  all  things.  For  about  an  hour  he 
would  continue  to  be  on  Basque  soil;  then,  it 
would  end.  Along  his  route,  he  met  some  ox- 
carts, of  indolent  demeanor,  recalling  the  tran- 
quillities of  the  olden  time;  or  vague  human 
silhouettes,  hailing  him  with  the  traditional  good- 
night, the  antique  "Gaou-one,"  which  to-morrow 
he  would  cease  to  hear.  And  beyond,  at  his  left, 
in  the  depth  of  a  sort  of  black  abyss,  was  the 
profile  of  Spain,  Spain  which,  for  a  very  long 
time  doubtless,  would  trouble  his  nights  no 
longer — 


PART  II, 


PART  II, 


CHAPTER  I. 

Three  years  have  passed,  rapidly. 

Franchita  is  alone  at  home,  ill  and  in  bed,  at 
the  end  of  a  November  day. — And  it  is  the  third 
autumn  since  her  son's  departure. 

In  her  hands,  burning  with  fever,  she  holds  a 
letter  from  him,  a  letter  which  should  have 
brought  only  joy  without  a  cloud,  since  it  an- 
nounces his  return,  but  which  causes  in  her,  on 
the  contrary,  tormented  sentiments,  for  the  hap- 
piness of  seeing  him  again  is  poisoned  now  by 
sadness,  by  worry  especially,  by  frightful  worry — 

Oh,  she  had  an  exact  presentiment  of  the 
sombre  future,  that  night  when,  returning  from 
escorting  him  on  the  road  to  departure,  she  re- 

[175] 


1 76  Ramuntcho. 

turned  to  her  house  with  so  much  anguish,  after 
that  sort  of  defiance  hurled  at  Dolores  on  the 
street:  it  was  cruelly  true  that  she  had  broken 
then  forever  her  son's  life! — 

Months  of  waiting  and  of  apparent  calm  had 
followed  that  scene,  while  Ramuntcho,  far  from 
his  native  land,  was  beginning  his  military  serv- 
ice. Then,  one  day,  a  wealthy  suitor  had  pre- 
sented himself  for  Gracieuse  and  she,  to  the  entire 
village's  knowledge,  had  rejected  him  obstinate- 
ly in  spite  of  Dolores's  will.  Then,  they  had  sud- 
denly gone  away,  the  mother  and  the  daughter, 
pretexting  a  visit  to  relatives  in  the  highland ;  but 
the  voyage  had  been  prolonged ;  a  mystery  more 
and  more  singular  had  enveloped  this  absence, — 
and  suddenly  the  rumor  had  come  that  Gracieuse 
was  a  novice  among  the  sisters  of  Saint  Mary  of 
the  Rosary,  in  a  convent  of  Gascony  where  the 
former  Mother  Superior  of  Etchezar  was  the 
abbess! — 

Dolores  had  reappeared  alone  in  her  home, 
mute,  with  a  desolate  and  evil  air.  None  knew 
what  influence  had  been  exercised  over  the  little 
girl  with  the  golden  hair,  nor  how  the  luminous 
doors  of  life  had  been  closed  before  her,  how  she 
had  permitted  herself  to  be  walled  in  that  tomb; 
but,  as  soon  as  the  period  of  novitiate  had  been 
accomplished,  without  seeing  even  her  brother, 


Ramimtcho.  177 

she  had  taken  her  vows  there, — while  Ramun- 
tcho,  in  a  far-off  colonial  war,  ever  distant  from 
the  post-offices  of  France,  among  the  forests  of  a 
Southern  island,  won  the  stripes  of  a  sergeant  and 
a  military  medal. 

Franchita  had  been  almost  afraid  that  he  would 
never  return,  her  son. — But  at  last,  he  was  com- 
ing back.  Between  her  fingers,  thin  and  warm, 
she  held  the  letter  which  said:  "  I  start  day  after 
to-morrow  and  I  will  be  with  you  Saturday 
night."  But  what  would  he  do,  at  his  return, 
what  would  he  make  of  his  life,  so  sadly  changed? 
In  his  letters,  he  had  obstinately  refrained  from 
writing  of  this. 

Anyway,  everything  had  turned  against  her. 
The  farmers,  her  tenants,  had  left  Etchezar,  leav- 
ing the  barn  empty,  the  house  more  lonely,  and 
naturally  her  modest  income  was  much  dimin- 
ished. Moreover,  in  an  imprudent  investment, 
she  had  lost  a  part  of  the  money  which  the  stran- 
ger had  given  for  her  son.  Truly,  she  was  too 
unskilful  a  mother,  compromising  in  every  way 
the  happiness  of  her  beloved  Ramuntcho, — or 
rather,  she  was  a  mother  upon  whom  justice  from 
above  fell  heavily  to-day,  because  of  her  past 
error. — And  all  this  had  vanquished  her,  all  this 
had  hastened  and  aggravated  the  malady  which 


1 78  Ramuntcho. 

the  physician,  called  too  late,  did  not  succeed  in 
checking-. 

Now,  therefore,  waiting  for  the  return  of  her 
son,  she  was  stretched  on  her  bed,  burning  with 
fever. 


Ramuntcho.  1 79 


CHAPTER  II. 

He  was  returning,  Ramuntcho,  after  his  three 
years  of  absence,  discharged  from  the  army  in 
that  city  of  the  North  where  his  regiment  was  in 
garrison.  He  was  returning  with  his  heart  in 
disarray,  with  his  heart  in  a  tumult  and  in  distress. 

His  twenty-two  year  old  face  had  darkened 
under  the  ardent  sun;  his  mustache,  now  very 
long,  gave  him  an  air  of  proud  nobility.  And, 
on  the  lapel  of  the  civilian  coat  which  he  had  just 
bought,  appeared  the  glorious  ribbon  of  his 
medal. 

At  Bordeaux,  where  he  had  arrived  after  a 
night  of  travel,  he  had  taken  a  place,  with  some 
emotion,  in  that  train  of  Irun  which  descends  in 
a  direct  line  toward  the  South,  through  the  mono- 
tony of  the  interminable  moors.  Near  the  right 
door  he  had  installed  himself  in  order  to  see 
sooner  the  Bay  of  Biscay  open  and  the  highlands 
of  Spain  sketch  themselves. 

Then,  near  Bayonne,  he  had  been  startled  at 
the  sight  of  the  first  Basque  caps,  at  the  tall  gates, 
the  first  Basque  houses  among  the  pines  and  the 
oaks. 


180  Ramuntcho. 

And  at  Saint-Jean-de  Luz  at  last,  when  he  set 
foot  on  -the  soil,  he  had  felt  like  one  drunk — 
After  the  mist  and  the  cold  already  begun  in 
Northern  France,  he  felt  the  sudden  and  voluptu- 
ous impression  of  a  warmer  climate,  the  sensation 
of  going  into  a  hothouse.  There  was  a  festival 
of  sunlight  that  day;  the  southern  wind,  the  ex- 
quisite southern  wind,  blew,  and  the  Pyrenees 
had  magnificent  tints  on  the  grand,  free  sky. 
Moreover,  girls  passed,  whose  laughter  rang  of 
the  South  and  of  Spain,  who  had  the  elegance 
and  the  grace  of  the  Basques — and  who,  after  the 
heavy  blondes  of  the  North,  troubled  him  more 
than  all  these  illusions  of  summer. — But  prompt- 
ly he  returned  to  himself:  what  was  he  thinking 
of,  since  that  regained  land  was  to  him  an  empty 
land  forever?  How  could  his  infinite  despair  be 
changed  by  that  tempting  gracefulness  of  the 
girls,  by  that  ironical  gaiety  of  the  sky,  the  human 
beings  and  the  things? — No!  He  would  go  home, 
embrace  his  mother! — 

As  he  had  expected,  the  stage-coach  to  Etche- 
zar  had  left  two  hours  ago.  But,  without  trouble, 
he  would  traverse  on  foot  this  long  road  so 
familiar  to  him  and  arrive  in  the  evening,  before 
night. 

So  he  went  to  buy  sandals,  the  foot-gear  of  his 
former  runs.  And,  with  the  mountaineer's  quick 


Ramuntcho.  181 

step,  in  long,  nervous  strides,  he  plunged  at  once 
into  the  heart  of  the  silent  country,  through  paths 
which  were  for  him  full  of  memories. 

November  was  coming  to  an  end  in  the  tepid 
radiance  of  that  sun  which  lingers  always  here  for 
a  long  time,  on  the  Pyrenean  slopes.  For  days, 
in  the  Basque  land,  had  lasted  this  same  luminous 
and  pure  sky,  above  woods  half  despoiled  of  their 
leaves,  above  mountains  reddened  by  the  ardent 
tint  of  the  ferns.  From  the  borders  of  the  paths 
ascended  tall  grasses,  as  in  the  month  of  May, 
and  large,  umbellated  flowers,  mistaken  about 
the  season;  in  the  hedges,  privets  and  briars  had 
come  into  bloom  again,  in  the  buzz  of  the  last 
bees;  and  one  could  see  flying  persistent  butter- 
flies, to  whom  death  had  given  several  weeks  of 
grace. 

The  Basque  houses  appeared  here  and  there 
among  the  trees, — very  elevated,  the  roof  pro- 
truding, white  in  their  extreme  oldness,  with  their 
shutters  brown  or  green,  of  a  green  ancient  and 
faded.  And  everywhere,  on  their  wooden  bal- 
conies were  drying  the  yellow  gold  pumpkins, 
the  sheafs  of  pink  peas;  everywhere,  on  their 
walls,  like  beautiful  beads  of  coral,  were  garlands 
of  red  peppers:  all  the  things  of  the  soil  still 
fecund,  all  the  things  of  the  old,  nursing  soil, 
amassed  thus  in  accordance  with  old  time  usage, 


1 82  Ramuntcho. 

in  provision  for  the  darkened  months  when  the 
heat  departs. 

And,  after  the  mists  of  the  Northern  autumn, 
that  limpidity  of  the  air,  that  southern  sunlight, 
every  detail  of  the  land,  awakened  in  the  complex 
mind  of  Ramuntcho  infinite  vibrations,  pain- 
fully sweet. 

It  was  the  tardy  season  when  are  cut  the  ferns 
that  form  the  fleece  of  the  reddish  hills.  And, 
large  ox-carts  filled  with  them  rolled  tranquilly, 
in  the  beautiful,  melancholy  sun,  toward  the  iso- 
lated farms,  leaving  on  their  passage  the  trail  of 
their  fragrance.  Very  slowly,  through  the 
mountain  paths,  went  these  enormous  loads  of 
ferns;  very  slowly,  with  sounds  of  cow-bells.  The 
harnessed  oxen,  indolent  and  strong, — all  wear- 
ing the  traditional  head-gear  of  sheepskin,  fal- 
low colored,  which  gives  to  them  the  air  of 
bisons  or  of  aurochs, — pulled  those  heavy  carts, 
the  wheels  of  which  are  solid  disks,  like  those 
of  antique  chariots.  The  cowboys,  holding  the 
long  stick  in  their  hands,  marched  in  front,  al- 
ways noiselessly,  in  sandals,  the  pink  cotton 
shirt  revealing  the  chest,  the  waistcoat  thrown 
over  the  left  shoulder — and  the  woolen  cap 
drawn  over  a  face  shaven,  thin,  grave,  to  which 
the  width  of  the  jaws  and  of  the  muscles  of  the 
neck  gives  an  expression  of  massive  solidity. 


Ramuntcho.  1 83 

Then,  there  were  intervals  of  solitude  when 
one  heard,  in  these  paths,  only  the  buzz  of  flies, 
in  the  yellowed  and  finishing  shade  of  the  trees. 

Ramuntcho  looked  at  them,  at  these  rare  pas- 
sers-by who  crossed  his  road,  surprised  at  not 
meeting  somebody  he  knew  who  would  stop  be- 
fore him.  But  there  were  no  familiar  faces. 
And  the  friends  whom  he  met  were  not  effusive, 
there  were  only  vague  good-days  exchanged 
with  folks  who  turned  round  a  little,  with  an 
impression  of  having  seen  him  sometime,  but 
not  recalling  when,  and  fell  back  into  the  humble 
dream  of  the  fields. — And  he  felt  more  em- 
phasized than  ever  the  primary  differences  be- 
tween him  and  those  farm  laborers. 

Over  there,  however,  comes  one  of  those 
carts  whose  sheaf  is  so  big  that  branches  of  oaks 
in  its  passage  catch  it.  In  front,  walks  the 
driver,  with  a  look  of  soft  resignation,  a  big, 
peaceful  boy,  red  as  the  ferns,  red  as  the  autumn, 
with  a  reddish  fur  in  a  bush  on  his  bare  chest; 
he  walks  with  a  supple  and  nonchalant  manner, 
his  arms  extended  like  those  of  a  cross  on  his 
goad,  placed  across  his  shoulders.  Thus,  doubt- 
less, on  these  same  mountains,  marched  his 
ancestors,  farm  laborers  and  cowboys  like  him 
since  numberless  centuries. 

And  this  one,  at  Ramuntcho's  aspect,  touches 


184  Ramuntcho. 

the  forehead  of  his  oxen,  stops  them  with  a 
gesture  and  a  cry  of  command,  then  comes  to 
the  traveller,  extending  to  him  his  brave  hands. 
— Florentino!  A  Florentine  much  changed, 
having  squarer  shoulders,  quite  a  man  now, 
with  an  assured  and  fixed  demeanor. 

The  two  friends  embrace  each  other.  Then, 
they  scan  each  other's  faces  in  silence,  troubled 
suddenly  by  the  wave  of  reminiscences  which 
come  from  the  depth  of  their  minds  and  which 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  knows  how  to 
express;  Ramuntcho,  not  better  than  Floren- 
tino, for,  if  his  language  be  infinitely  better 
formed,  the  profoundness  and  the  mystery  of 
his  thoughts  are  also  much  more  unfathomable. 

And  it  oppresses  them  to  conceive  things 
which  they  are  powerless  to  tell;  then  their  em- 
barrassed looks  return  absent-mindedly  to  the 
two  beautiful,  big  oxen : 

"  They  are  mine,  you  know"  says  Florentino. 
"  I  was  married  two  years  ago. — My  wife  works. 
And,  by  working — we  are  beginning  to  get  a- 
long. — Oh !  "  he  adds,  with  naive  pride,  "  I  have 
another  pair  of  oxen  like  these  at  the  house." 

Then  he  ceases  to  talk,  flushing  suddenly 
under  his  sunburn,  for  he  has  the  tact  which 
comes  from  the  heart,  which  the  humblest  pos- 
sess often  by  nature,  but  which  education  never 


Ramuntcho.  185 

gives,  even  to  the  most  refined  people  in  the 
world :  considering  the  desolate  return  of  Ramun- 
tcho, his  broken  destiny,  his  betrothed  buried 
over  there  among  the  black  nuns,  his  mother 
dying,  Florentino  is  afraid  to  have  been  already 
too  cruel  in  displaying  too  much  his  own  hap- 
piness. 

Then  the  silence  returned ;  they  looked  at  eack 
other  for  an  instant  with  kind  smiles,  finding  no 
words.  Besides,  between  them,  the  abyss  of 
different  conceptions  has  grown  deeper  in  these 
three  years.  And  Florentino,  touching  anew 
the  foreheads  of  his  oxen,  makes  them  march 
again  with  a  call  of  his  tongue,  and  presses  tighter 
the  hand  of  his  friend: 

"  We  shall  see  each  other  again,  shall  we  not?" 

And  the  noise  of  the  cow-bells  is  soon  lost  in 
the  calm  of  the  road  more  shady,  where  begins 
to  diminish  the  heat  of  the  day — 

''"Well,  he  has  succeeded  in  life,  that  one!" 
thinks  Ramuntcho  lugubriously,  continuing  his 
walk  under  the  autumn  branches — 

The  road  which  he  follows. ascends,  hollowed 
here  and  there  by  springs  and  sometimes  crossed 
by  big  roots  of  oaks. 

Soon  Etchezar  will  appear  to  him  and,  before 
seeing  it,  the  image  of  it  becomes  more  and  more 
precise  in  him,  recalled  and  enlivened  in  his 
memory  by  the  aspect  of  the  surroundings. 


1 86  Ramimtcho. 

Empty  now,  all  this  land,  where  Gracieuse  is 
no  more,  empty  and  sad  as  a  beloved  home  where 
the  great  Reaper  has  passed! — And  yet  Ramun- 
tcho, in  the  depths  of  his  being,  dares  to  think 
that,  in  some  small  convent  over  there,  under  the 
veil  of  a  nun,  the  cherished  black  eyes  still  exist 
and  that  he  will  be  able  at  least  to  see  them ;  that 
taking  the  veil  is  not  quite  like  dying,  and  that 
perhaps  the  last  word  of  his  destiny  has  not  been 
said  irrevocably. — For,  when  he  reflects,  what 
can  have  changed  thus  the  soul  of  Gracieuse, 
formerly  so  uniquely  devoted  to  him? — Oh,  ter- 
rible, foreign  pressure,  surely — And  then,  when 
they  come  face  to  face  again,  who  knows? — 
When  they  talk,  with  his  eyes  in  her  eyes? — But 
what  can  he  expect  that  is  reasonable  and  pos- 
sible?— In  his  native  land  has  a  nun  ever  broken 
her  eternal  vows  to  follow  one  to  whom  she  was 
engaged?  And  besides,  where  would  they  go  to 
live  together  afterward,  when  folks  would  get 
out  of  their  way,  would  fly  from  them  as  rene- 
gades?— To  America  perhaps,  and  even  there! — 
And  how  could  he  take  her  from  these  white 
houses  of  the  dead  where  the  sisters  live,  eter- 
nally watched? — Oh,  no,  all  this  is  a  chimera 
which  may  not  be  realized — All  is  at  an  end,  all 
is  finished  hopelessly! — 

Then,  the  sadness  which  comes  to  him  from 


Ramuntcho.  187 

Gracieuse  is  forgotten  for  a  moment,  and  he 
feels  nothing  except  an  outburst  of  his  heart  to- 
ward his  mother,  toward  his  mother  who  re- 
mains to  him,  who  is  there,  very  near,  a  little 
upset,  doubtless,  by  the  joyful  trouble  of  waiting 
for  him. 

And  now,  on  the  left  of  his  route,  is  a  humble 
hamlet,  half  hidden  in  the  beeches  and  the  oaks, 
with  its  ancient  chapel, — and  with  its  wall  for  the 
pelota  game,  under  very  old  trees,  at  the  crossing 
of  two  paths.  At  once,  in  Ramuntcho's  youthful 
head,  the  course  of  thoughts  changes  again:  that 
little  wall  with  rounded  top,  covered  with  wash 
of  kalsomine  and  ochre,  awakens  tumultuously  in 
him  thoughts  of  life,  of  force  and  of  joy;  with  a 
childish  ardor  he  says  to  himself  that  to-morrow 
he  will  be  able  to  return  to  that  game  of  the 
Basques,  which  is  an  intoxication  of  movement 
and  of  rapid  skill;  he  thinks  of  the  grand  matches 
on  Sundays  after  vespers,  of  the  glory  of  the  fine 
struggles  with  the  champions  of  Spain,  of  all  this 
deprivation  of  his  years  of  exile.  But  it  is  a 
very  short  instant,  and  mortal  despair  comes  back 
to  him:  his  triumphs  on  the  squares,  Gracieuse 
shall  not  see  them;  then,  what  is  the  use! — 
Without  her,  all  things,  even  these,  fall  back  dis- 
colored, useless  and  vain,  do  not  even  exist — 

Etchezar! — Etchezar,  is  revealed  suddenly  at 


1 88  Ramuntcho. 

a  turn  of  the  road! — It  is  in  a  red  light,  some- 
thing like  a  fantasmagoria  image,  illuminated 
purposely  in  a  special  manner  in  the  midst  of 
grand  backgrounds  of  shade  and  of  night.  It  is 
the  hour  of  the  setting  sun.  Around  the  isolated 
village,  which  the  old,  heavy  belfry,  surmounts, 
a  last  sheaf  of  rays  traces  a  halo  of  the  color  of 
copper  and  gold,  while  clouds — and  a  gigantic 
obscurity  emanating  from  the  Gizune — darken 
the  lands  piled  up  above  and  under,  the  mass  of 
brown  hills,  colored  by  the  death  of  the  ferns — 

Oh!  the  melancholy  apparition  of  the  native 
land,  to  the  soldier  who  returns  and  will  not  find 
his  sweetheart! — 

Three  years  have  passed  since  he  left  here. — 
Well,  three  years,  at  his  age,  are  an  abyss  of  time, 
a  period  which  changes  all  things.  And,  after 
that  lone  exile,  how  this  village,  which  he  adores, 
appears  to  him  diminished,  small,  walled  in  the 
mountains,  sad  and  hidden ! — In  the  depth  of  his 
mind  of  a  tall,  uncultured  boy,  commences  again, 
to  make  him  suffer  more,  the  struggle  of  those 
two  sentiments  of  a  too  refined  man,  which  are 
an  inheritance  of  his  unknown  father:  an  at- 
tachment almost  maladive  to  the  home,  to  the 
land  of  childhood,  and  a  fear  of  returning  to  be 
enclosed  in  it,  when  there  exist  in  the  world 
other  places  so  vast  and  so  free. 


Ramuntcho.  189 

— After  the  warm  afternoon,  the  autumn  is  in- 
dicated now  by  the  hasty  fall  of  the  day,  with  a 
coolness  ascending  suddenly  from  the  valleys 
underneath,  a  scent  of  dying  leaves  and  of  moss. 
And  then  the  thousand  details  of  preceding  au- 
tumns in  the  Basque  country,  of  the  former 
Novembers,  come  to  him  very  precisely;  the  cold 
fall  of  night  succeeding  the  beautiful,  sunlit  day; 
the  sad  clouds  appearing  with  the  night;  the 
Pyrenees  confounded  in  vapors  inky  gray,  or,  in 
places,  cut  in  black  silhouettes  on  a  pale,  golden 
sky ;  around  the  houses,  the  belated  flowers  of  the 
gardens,  which  the  frost  spares  for  a  long  time 
here,  and,  in  front  of  all  the  doors,  the  strewn 
leaves  of  the  plane-trees,  the  yellow  strewn  leaves 
cracking  under  the  steps  of  the  man  returning  in 
sandals  to  his  home  for  supper. — Oh,  the  heed- 
less joy  of  these  returns  to  the  home,  in  the  nights 
of  other  times,  after  days  of  marching  on  the  rude 
mountain!  Oh,  the  gaiety,  in  that  time,  of  the 
first  winter  fires — in  the  tall,  smoky  hearth  or- 
namented with  a  drapery  of  white  calico  and 
with  a  strip  of  pink  paper.  No,  in  the  city,  with 
its  rows  of  houses  one  does  not  have  the  real 
impression  of  returning  home,  of  earthing  up 
like  plants  at  night  in  the  primitive  manner,  as 
one  has  it  here,  under  those  Basque  roofs,  soli- 
tary in  the  midst  of  the  country,  with  the  grand, 


190  Ramuntcho. 

surrounding  black,  the  grand,  shivering  black 
of  the  foliage,  the  grand,  changing  black  of  the 
clouds  and  the  summits. — But  to-day,  his 
travels,  his  new  conceptions,  have  diminished 
and  spoiled  his  mountaineer's  home;  he  will 
doubtless  find  it  almost  desolate,  especially  in  the 
thought  that  his  mother  shall  not  be  there  al- 
ways— and  that  Gracieuse  shall  never  be  there 
again. 

His  pace  quickens  in  his  haste  to  embrace  his 
mother;  he  turns  around  his  village  instead  of 
going  into  it,  in  order  to  reach  his  house  through 
a  path  which  overlooks  the  square  and  church; 
passing  quickly,  he  looks  at  everything  with  in- 
expressible pain.  Peace,  silence  soar  over  this 
little  parish  of  Etchezar,  heart  of  the  French 
Basque  land  and  country  of  all  the  famous  pelo- 
taris  of  the  past  who  have  become  heavy  grand- 
fathers, or  are  dead  now.  The  immutable 
church,  where  have  remained  buried  his  dreams 
of  faith,  is  surrounded  by  the  same  dark  cypresses, 
like  a  mosque.  The  ball-game  square,  while  he 
walks  quickly  above  it,  is  still  lighted  by  the  sun 
with  a  finishing  ray,  oblique,  toward  the  back- 
ground, toward  the  wall  which  the  ancient  in- 
scription surmounts, — as  on  the  evening  of  his 
first  great  success,  four  years  ago,  when,  in  the 
joyous  crowd,  Gracieuse  stood  in  a  blue  gown, 


Ramuntcho.  191 

she  who  has  become  a  black  nun  to-day. — On 
the  deserted  benches,  on  the  granite  steps  where 
the  grass  grows,  three  or  four  old  men  are  seated, 
who  were  formerly  the  heroes  of  the  place  and 
whom  their  reminiscences  bring  back  here  in- 
cessantly, to  talk  at  the  end  of  the  days,  when  the 
twilight  descends  from  the  summits,  invades  the 
earth,  seems  to  emanate  and  to  fall  from  the 
brown  Pyrenees. — Oh,  the  folks  who  live  here, 
whose  lives  run  here;  oh,  the  little  cider  inns,  the 
little,  simple  shops  and  the  old,  little  things — 
brought  from  the  cities,  from  the  other  places — 
sold  to  the  mountaineers  of  the  surrounding 
country! — How  all  this  seems  to  him  now 
strange,  separated  from  him,  or  set  far  in  the 
background  of  the  primitive  past! — Is  he  truly 
not  a  man  of  Etchezar  to-day,  is  he  no  longer  the 
Ramuntcho  of  former  times? — What  particular 
thing  resides  in  his  mind  to  prevent  him  from 
feeling  comfortable  here,  as  the  others  feel?  Why 
is  it  prohibited  to  him,  to  him  alone,  to  ac- 
complish here  the  tranquil  destiny  of  his  dreams, 
since  all  his  friends  have  accomplished  theirs? — 
At  last  here  is  his  house,  there,  before  his  eyes. 
It  is  as  he  expected  to  find  it.  As  he  expected, 
he  recognizes  along  the  wall  all  the  persistent 
flowers  cultivated  by  his  mother,  the  same  flowers 
which  the  frost  has  destroyed  weeks  ago  in  the 


192  Ramuntcho. 

North  from  which  he  comes:  heliotropes,  gera- 
niums, tall  dahlias  and  roses  with  climbing 
branches.  And  the  cherished,  strewrn  leaves, 
which  fall  every  autumn  from  the  vault-shaped 
plane-trees,  are  there  also,  and  are  crushed  with 
a  noise  so  familiar  under  his  steps ! — 

In  the  lower  hall,  when  he  enters,  there  is  al- 
ready grayish  indecision,  already  night.  The 
high  chimney,  where  his  glance  rests  at  first  by 
an  instinctive  reminiscence  of  the  fires  of  ancient 
evenings,  stands  the  same  with  its  white  drapery ; 
but  cold,  filled  with  shade,  smelling  of  absence 
or  death. 

He  runs  up  to  his  mother's  room.  She,  from 
her  bed  having  recognized  her  son's  step,  has 
straightened  up,  all  stiff,  all  white  in  the  twilight : 

"  Ramuntcho,"  she  says,  in  a  veiled  and  aged 
voice. 

She  extends  her  arms  to  him  and  as  soon  as 
she  holds  him,  enlaces  and  embraces  him: 

"Ramuntcho!—" 

Then,  having  uttered  this  name  without  ad- 
ding anything,  she  leans  her  head  against  his 
cheek,  in  the  habitual  movement  of  surrender,  in 
the  movement  of  the  grand,  tender  feelings  of 
other  times. — He,  then,  perceives  that  his 
mother's  face  is  burning  against  his.  Through 
her  shirt  he  feels  the  arms  that  surround  him  thin, 


Ramuntcho.  193 

feverish  and  hot.  And  for  the  first  time,  he  is 
frightened;  the  notion  that  she  is  doubtless  very 
ill  comes  to  his  mind,  the  possibility  and  the  sud- 
den terror  that  she  might  die — 

"Oh,  you  are  alone,  mother!  But  who  takes 
care  of  you?  Who  watches  over  you?" 

"Who  watches  over  me? — "  she  replies  with 
her  abrupt  brusqueness,  her  ideas  of  a  peasant 
suddenly  returned.  "Spending  money  to  nurse 
me,  why  should  I  do  it? — The  church  woman  or 
the  old  Doyamburu  comes  in  the  day-time  to 
give  me  the  things  that  I  need,  the  things  that 
the  physician  orders. — But — medicine ! — Well ! 
Light  a  lamp,  my  Ramuntcho! — I  want  to  see 
you — and  I  cannot  see  you — " 

And,  when  the  clearness  has  come  from  a 
Spanish,  smuggled  match,  she  says  in  a  tone  of 
caress  infinitely  sweet,  as  one  talks  to  a  very 
little  child  whom  one  adores: 

"Oh,  your  mustache!  The  long  mustache 
which  has  come  to  you,  my  son! — I  do  not 
recognize  my  Ramuntcho! — Bring  your  lamp 
here,  bring  it  here  so  that  I  can  look  at  you! — " 

He  also  sees  her  better  now,  under  the  new 
light  of  that  lamp,  while  she  admires  him  loving- 
ly. And  he  is  more  frightened  still,  because  the 
cheeks  of  his  mother  are  so  hollow,  her  hair  is  so 
whitened;  even  the  expression  of  her  eyes  is 


1 94  Ramuntcho. 

changed  and  almost  extinguished;  on  her  face 
appears  the  sinister  and  irremediable  labor  of 
time,  of  suffering  and  of  death — 

And,  now,  two  tears,  rapid  and  heavy,  fall  from 
the  eyes  of  Franchita,  which  widen,  become  living 
again,  made  young  by  desperate  revolt  and 
hatred. 

"Oh,  that  woman,"  she  says  suddenly.  "Oh, 
that  Dolores!—" 

And  her  cry  expresses  and  summarizes  all  her 
jealousy  of  thirty  years'  standing,  all  her  merci- 
less rancor  against  that  enemy  of  her  childhood 
who  has  succeeded  at  last  in  breaking  the  life  of 
her  son. 

A  silence  between  them.  He  is  seated,  with 
head  bent,  near  the  bed,  holding  the  poor, 
feverish  hand  which  his  mother  has  extended  to 
him.  She,  breathing  more  quickly,  seems  for  a 
long  while  under  the  oppression  of  something 
which  she  hesitates  to  express: 

"Tell  me,  my  Ramuntcho! — I  would  like  to 
ask  you. — What  do  you  intend  to  do,  my  son? 
What  are  your  projects  for  the  future? — " 

"  I  do  not  know,  mother. — I  will  think,  I  will 
see. — You  ask — all  at  once. — We  have  time  to 
talk  of  this,  have  we  not? — To  America,  per- 
haps—" 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  says  slowly,  with  the  fear  that 


Ramuntcho.  195 

was  in  her  for  days,  "to  America — I  suspected  it. 
Oh,  that  is  what  you  will  do. — I  knew  it,  I  knew 
it—" 

Her  phrase  ends  in  a  groan  and  she  joins  her 
hands  to  try  to  pray — 


196  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Ramuntcho,  the  next  morning,  was  wander- 
ing in  the  village,  under  a  sun  which  had  pierced 
the  clouds  of  the  night,  a  sun  as  radient  as  that 
of  yesterday.  Careful  in  his  dress,  the  ends  of 
his  mustache  turned  up,  proud  in  his  demeanor, 
elegant,  grave  and  handsome,  he  went  at  random, 
to  see  and  to  be  seen,  a  little  childishness  min- 
gling with  his  seriousness,  a  little  pleasure  with 
his  distress.  His  mother  had  said  to  him: 

"  I  am  better,  I  assure  you.  To-day  is  Sunday ; 
go,  walk  about  I  pray  you — " 

And  passers-by  turned  their  heads  to  look  at 
him,  whispered  the  news:  "  Franchita's  son  has 
returned  home;  he  looks  very  well!  " 

A  summer  illusion  persisted  everywhere,  with, 
however,  the  unfathomable  melancholy  of  things 
tranquilly  finishing.  Under  that  impassible 
radiance  of  sunlight,  the  Pyrenean  fields  seemed 
dull,  all  their  plants,  all  their  grasses  were  as  if 
collected  in  one  knows  not  what  resignation 
weary  of  living,  what  expectation  of  death. 

The  turns  of  the  path,  the  houses,  the  least 
trees,  all  recalled  hours  of  other  times  to  Ra- 


Ramuntcho.  197 

muntcho,  hours  wherein  Gracieuse  was  mingled. 
And  then,  at  each  reminiscence,  at  each  step, 
engraved  itself  and  hammered  itself  in  his  mind, 
under  a  new  form,  this  verdict  without  recourse: 
"  It  is  finished,  you  are  alone  forever,  Gracieuse 
has  been  taken  away  from  you  and  is  in  prison — " 
The  rents  in  his  heart,  every  accident  in  the  path 
renewed  and  changed  them.  And,  in  the  depth 
of  his  being,  as  a  constant  basis  for  his  reflections, 
this  other  anxiety  endured:  his  mother,  his 
mother  very  ill,  in  mortal  danger,  perhaps! — 

He  met  people  who  stopped  him,  with  a  kind 
and  welcoming  air,  who  talked  to  him  in  the  dear 
Basque  tongue — ever  alert  and  sonorous  despite 
its  incalculable  antiquity;  old  Basque  caps,  old 
white  heads,  liked  to  talk  of  the  ball-game  to  this 
fine  player  returned  to  his  cradle.  And  then,  at 
once,  after  the  first  words  of  greeting,  smiles  went 
out,  in  spite  of  this  clear  sun  in  this  blue  sky,  and 
all  were  disturbed  by  the  thought  of  Gracieuse  in 
a  veil  and  of  Franchita  dying. 

A  violent  flush  of  blood  went  up  to  his  face 
when  he  caught  sight  of  Dolores,  at  a  distance, 
going  into  her  home.  Very  decrepit,  that  one, 
and  wearing  a  prostrate  air!  She  had  re- 
cognized him,  for  she  turned  quickly  her  obsti- 
nate and  hard  head,  covered  by  a  mourning  man- 
tilla. With  a  sentiment  of  pity  at  seeing  her  so 


1 98  Ramuntcho. 

undone,  he  reflected  that  she  had  struck  herself 
with  the  same  blow,  and  that  she  would  be  alone 
now  in  her  old  age  and  at  her  death — 

On  the  square,  he  met  Marcos  Iragola  who 
informed  him  that  he  was  married,  like  Floren- 
tine— and  with  the  little  friend  of  his  childhood, 
he  also. 

"  I  did  not  have  to  serve  in  the  army,"  Iragola 
explained,  "because  we  are  Guipuzcoans,  im- 
migrants in  France;  so  I  could  marry  her 
earlier! " 

He,  twenty-one  years  old;  she  eighteen;  with- 
out lands  and  without  a  penny,  Marcos  and  Pilar, 
but  joyfully  associated  all  the  same,  like  two 
sparrows  building  their  nest.  And  the  very 
young  husband  added  laughingly: 

"  What  would  you?  Father  said:  'As  long  as 
you  do  not  marry  I  warn  you  that  I  shall  give 
you  a  little  brother  every  year.'  And  he  would 
have  done  it!  There  are  already  fourteen  of  us, 
all  living — " 

Oh,  how  simple  and  natural  they  are!  How 
wise  and  humbly  happy! — Ramuntcho  quitted 
him  with  some  haste,  with  a  heart  more  bruised 
for  having  spoken  to  him,  but  wishing  very 
sincerely  that  he  should  be  happy  in  his  im- 
provident, birdlike,  little  home. 

Here  and  there,  folks  were  seated  in  front  of 


Ramuntcho.  199 

their  doors,  in  that  sort  of  atrium  of  branches 
which  precedes  all  the  houses  of  this  country. 
And  their  vaults  of  plane-trees,  cut  in  the  Basque 
fashion,  which  in  the  summer  are  so  impenetrable 
all  open  worked  in  this  season,  let  fall  on  them 
sheafs  of  light.  The  sun  flamed,  somewhat 
destructive  and  sad,  above  those  yellow  leaves 
which  were  drying  up — 

And  Ramuntcho,  in  his  slow  promenade,  felt 
more  and  more  what  intimate  ties,  singularly 
persistent,  would  attach  him  always  to  this  region 
of  the  earth,  harsh  and  enclosed,  even  if  he  were 
there  alone,  abandoned,  without  friends,  with- 
out a  wife  and  without  a  mother — 

Now,  the  high  mass  rings!  And  the  vibra- 
tions of  that  bell  impress  him  with  a  strange  emo- 
tion that  he  did  not  expect.  Formerly,  its 
familiar  appeal  was  an  appeal  to  joy  and  to 
pleasure — 

He  stops,  he  hesitates,  in  spite  of  his  actual 
religious  unbelief  and  in  spite  of  his  grudge 
against  that  church  which  has  taken  his  betrothed 
away  from  him.  The  bell  seems  to  invite  him 
to-day  in  so  special  a  manner,  with  so  peaceful 
and  caressing  a  voice:  "  Come,  come;  let  your- 
self be  rocked  as  your  ancestors  were;  come, 
poor,  desolate  being,  let  yourself  be  caught  by 
the  lure  which  will  make  your  tears  fall  without 
bitterness,  and  will  help  you  to  die — " 


2Oo  Ramuntcho. 

Undecided,  resisting  still,  he  walks,  however, 
toward  the  church — when  Arrochkoa  appears! 

Arrochkoa,  whose  catlike  mustache  has 
lengthened  a  great  deal  and  whose  feline  expres- 
sion is  accentuated,  runs  to  him  with  extended 
hands,  with  an  effusion  that  he  did  not  expect, 
in  an  enthusiasm,  perhaps  sincere,  for  that  ex- 
sergeant  who  has  such  a  grand  air,  who  wears 
the  ribbon  of  a  medal  and  whose  adventures  have 
made  a  stir  in  the  land: 

"Ah,  my  Ramuntcho,  when  did  you  arrive? — 
Oh,  if  I  could  have  prevented — What  do  you 
think  of  my  old,  hardened  mother  and  of  all 
those  church  bigots? — Oh,  I  did  not  tell  you:  I 
have  a  son,  since  two  months ;  a  fine  little  fellow ! 
We  have  so  many  things  to  say,  my  poor  friend, 
so  many  things! — " 

The  bell  rings,  rings,  fills  the  air  more  and 
more  with  its  soft  appeal,  very  grave  and  some- 
what imposing  also. 

"  You  are  not  going  there,  I  suppose?  "  asks 
Arrochkoa,  pointing  to  the  church. 

"  No,  oh,  no,"  replies  Ramuntcho,  sombrely 
decided. 

"  Well  come  then,  let  us  go  in  here  and  taste 
the  new  cider  of  your  country ! — " 

To  the  smugglers'  cider  mill,  he  brings  him; 
both,  near  the  open  window,  sit  as  formerly, 


Ramuntcho.  201 

looking  outside; — and  this  place  also,  these  old 
benches,  these  casks  in  a  line  in  the  back,  these 
same  images  on  the  wall,  are  there  to  recall  to 
Ramuntcho  the  delicious  times  of  the  past,  the 
times  that  are  finished. 

The  weather  is  adorably  beautiful;  the  sky  re- 
tains a  rare  limpidity;  through  the  air  passes  that 
special  scent  of  falling  seasons,  scent  of  woods 
despoiled,  of  dead  leaves  that  the  sun  overheats 
on  the  soil.  Now,  after  the  absolute  calm  of  the 
morning,  rises  a  wind  of  autumn,  a  chill  of 
November,  announcing  clearly,  but  with  a 
melancholy  almost  charming,  that  the  winter, 
is  near — a  southern  winter,  it  is  true,  a  softened 
winter,  hardly  interrupting  the  life  of  the  country. 
The  gardens  and  all  the  old  walls  are  still  or- 
namented with  roses! — 

At  first  they  talk  of  indifferent  things  while 
drinking  their  cider,  of  Ramuntcho's  travels,  of 
what  happened  in  the  country  during  his  absence, 
of  the  marriages  which  occured  or  were  broken. 
And,  to  those  two  rebels  who  have  fled  from  the 
church,  all  the  sounds  of  the  mass  come  during 
their  talk,  the  sounds  of  the  small  bells  and  the 
sounds  of  the  organ,  the  ancient  songs  that  fill 
the  high,  sonorous  nave — 

At  last,  Arrochkoa  returns  to  the  burning 
subject: 


2O2  Ramuntcho. 

"Oh,  if  you  had  been  here  it  would  not  have 
occtired ! — And  even  now,  if  she  saw  you — " 

Ramuntcho  looks  at  him  then,  trembling  at 
what  he  imagines  he  understands : 

"  Even  now? — What  do  you  mean?  " 

"Oh,  women — with  them,  does  one  ever  know? 
— She  cared  a  great  deal  for  you  and  it  was  hard 
for  her. — In  these  days  there  is  no  law  to  keep 
her  there! — How  little  would  I  care  if  she  broke 
her  vows — " 

Ramuntcho  turns  his  head,  lowers  his  eyes, 
says  nothing,  strikes  the  soil  with  his  foot.  And, 
in  the  silence,  the  impious  thing  which  he  had 
hardly  dared  to  formulate  to  himself,  seems  to 
him  little  by  little  less  chimerical,  attainable,  al- 
most easy. — No,  it  is  not  impossible  to  regain 
her.  And,  if  need  be,  doubtless,  Arrochkoa,  her 
own  brother,  would  lend  a  hand.  Oh,  what  a 
temptation  and  what  a  new  disturbance  in  his 
mind ! — 

Drily  he  asks,  "  Where  is  she? — Far  from 
here?  " 

"  Far  enough,  yes.  Over  there,  toward  Na- 
varre, five  or  six  hours  of  a  carriage  drive.  They 
have  changed  her  convent  twice.  She  lives  at 
Amezqueta  now,  beyond  the  oak  forests  of 
Oyanzabal;  the  road  is  through  Mendichoco; 
you  know,  we  must  have  gone  through  it  to- 
gether one  night  with  Itchoua." 


Rarnuntcho.  203 

The  high  mass  is  ended. — Groups  pass: 
women,  pretty  girls,  elegant  in  demeanor,  among 
whom  Gracieuse  is  no  more:  many  Basque  caps 
lowered  on  sunburnt  foreheads.  And  all  these 
faces  turn  to  look  at  the  two  cider  drinkers  at 
their  window.  The  wind,  that  blows  stronger, 
makes  dance  around  their  glasses  large,  dead, 
plane-tree  leaves. 

A  woman,  already  old,  casts  at  them,  from 
under  her  black  cloth  mantilla,  a  sad  and  evil 
glance: 

"  Ah,"  says  Arrochkoa,  "here  is  mother!  And 
she  looks  at  us  crosswise. — She  may  flatter  her- 
self for  her  work! — She  punished  herself  for  she 
will  end  in  solitude  now. — Catherine — who  is  at 
Elsagarray's,  you  know — works  by  the  day  for 
her;  otherwise,  she  would  have  nobody  to  talk 
to  in  the  evening — " 

A  bass  voice,  behind  them,  interrupts  them, 
with  a  Basque  greeting,  hollow  like  a  sound  in 
a  cavern,  while  a  large  and  heavy  hand  rests  on 
Ramuntcho's  shoulder  as  if  to  take  possession  of 
him:  Itchoua,  Itchoua  who  has  just  finished 
chanting  his  liturgy! — Not  changed  at  all,  this 
one;  he  has  always  his  same  ageless  face,  always 
his  colorless  mask  which  is  at  once  that  of  a 
monk  and  that  of  a  highwayman,  and  his  same 
eyes,  set  in,  hidden,  absent.  His  mind  also  must 


204  Ramuntcho. 

have  remained  similar,  his  mind  capable  of  im- 
passible murder  at  the  same  time  as  devout 
fetichism. 

"Ah,"  he  says,  in  a  tone  which  wishes  to  be 
that  of  a  good  fellow,  "you  have  returned  to  us, 
my  Ramuntcho!  Then  we  are  going  to  work  to- 
gether, eh?  Business  is  brisk  with  Spain  now, 
you  know,  and  arms  are  needed  at  the  frontier. 
You  are  one  of  us,  are  you  not?  " 

"Perhaps,"  replies  Ramuntcho.  "We  may 
talk  of  it—" 

For  several  moments  his  departure  for  America 
has  become  a  faint  idea  in  his  mind. — No! — He 
would  rather  stay  in  his  native  land,  begin  again 
his  former  life,  reflect  and  wait  obstinately.  Any- 
way, now  that  he  knows  where  she  is,  that  village 
of  Amezqueta,  at  a  distance  of  five  or  six  hours 
from  here,  haunts  him  in  a  dangerous  way,  and 
he  hugs  all  sorts  of  sacrilegious  projects  which, 
until  to-day,  he  would  never  have  dared  hardly 
to  conceive. 


Ramuntcho.  205 


CHAPTER  IV. 

At  noon,  he  returned  to  his  isolated  house  to 
see  his  mother. 

The  febrile  and  somewhat  artificial  improve- 
ment of  the  morning  had  continued.  Nursed  by 
the  old  Doyanburu,  Franchita  said  that  she  felt 
better,  and,  in  the  fear  that  Ramuntcho  might 
become  dreamy,  she  made  him  return  to  the 
square  to  attend  the  Sunday  ball-game. 

The  breath  of  the  wind  became  warm  again, 
blew  from  the  south;  none  of  the  shivers  of  a 
moment  ago  remained;  on  the  contrary,  a  sum- 
mer sun  and  atmosphere,  on  the  reddened  woods, 
on  the  rusty  ferns,  on  the  roads  where  continued 
to  fall  the  sad  leaves.  But  the  sky  was  gather- 
ing thick  clouds,  which  suddenly  came  out  from 
the  rear  of  the  mountains  as  if  they  had  stayed 
there  in  ambush  to  appear  all  at  the  same  signal. 

The  ball-game  had  not  yet  been  arranged  and 
groups  were  disputing  violently  when  he  reached 
the  square.  Quickly,  he  was  surrounded,  he  was 
welcomed,  designated  by  acclamation  to  go  into 
the  game  and  sustain  the  honor  of  his  county. 
He  did  not  dare,  not  having  played  for  three 


2o6  Ramuntcho. 

years  and  distrusting  his  unaccustomed  arm. 
At  last,  he  yielded  and  began  to  undress — but  to 
whom  would  he  trust  his  waistcoat  now? — The 
image  reappeared  to  him,  suddenly,  of  Gracieuse, 
seated  on  the  nearest  steps  and  extending  her 
hands  to  receive  it.  To  whom  would  he  throw 
his  waistcoat  to-day?  It  is  intrusted  ordinarily 
to  some  friend,  as  the  toreadors  do  with  their 
gilt  silk  mantles. — He  threw  it  at  random,  this 
time,  anywhere,  on  the  granite  of  the  old  benches 
flowered  with  belated  scabwort — 

The  match  began.  Out  of  practice  at  first, 
uncertain,  he  missed  several  times  the  little 
bounding  thing  which  is  to  be  caught  in  the  air. 

Then,  he  went  to  his  work  with  a  rage,  re- 
gained his  former  ease  and  became  himself  again 
superbly.  His  muscles  had  gained  in  strength 
what  they  had  perhaps  lost  in  skill;  again  he  was 
applauded,  he  knew  the  physical  intoxication  of 
moving,  of  leaping,  of  feeling  his  muscles  play 
like  supple  and  violent  springs,  of  hearing  around 
him  the  ardent  murmur  of  the  crowd. 

But  then  came  the  instant  of  rest  which  in- 
terrupts ordinarily  the  long  disputed  games ;  the 
moment  when  one  sits  halting,  the  blood  in  ebuli- 
tion,  the  hands  reddened,  trembling, — and  when 
one  regains  the  course  of  ideas  which  the  game 
suppresses. 


Ramuntcho.  207 

Then,  he  realized  the  distress  of  being  alone. 

Above  the  assembled  heads,  above  the  woolen 
caps  and  the  hair  ornamented  with  kerchiefs,  was 
accentuated  that  stormy  sky  which  the  southern 
winds,  when  they  are  about  to  finish,  bring  al- 
ways. The  air  had  assumed  an  absolute  limpidity, 
asifithad  become rarifi ed, rarified unto  emptiness. 
The  mountains  seemed  to  have  advanced  extra- 
ordinarily; the  Pyrenees  were  crushing  the  vil- 
lage; the  Spanish  summits  or  the  French  sum- 
mits were  there,  all  equally  near,  as  if  pasted  on 
one  another,  exaggerating  their  burned,  brown 
colors,  their  intense  and  sombre,  violet  tints. 
Large  clouds,  which  seemed  as  solid  as  terres- 
trial things,  were  displayed  in  the  form  of  bows, 
veiling  the  sun,  casting  an  obscurity  which  was 
like  an  eclipse.  And  here  and  there,  through 
some  rent,  bordered  with  dazzling  silver,  one 
could  see  the  profound  blue  green  of  a  sky  al- 
most African.  All  this  country,  the  unstable 
climate  of  which  changes  between  a  morning 
and  an  evening,  became  for  several  hours  strange- 
ly southern  in  aspect,  in  temperature  and  in  light. 

Ramuntcho  breathed  that  dry  and  suave  air, 
come  from  the  South  in  order  to  vivify  the  lungs. 
It  was  the  true  weather  of  his  native  land.  It 
was  even  the  characteristic  weather  of  that  land 
of  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  the  weather  which  he  liked 


2o8  Ramuntcho. 

best  formerly,  and  which  to-day  filled  him  with 
physical  comfort — as  much  as  with  disturbance 
of  mind,  for  all  that  was  preparing,  all  that  was 
amassing  above,  with  airs  of  ferocious  menace, 
impressed  him  with  the  sentiment  of  a  heaven 
deaf  to  prayers,  without  thoughts  as  without 
master,  a  simple  focus  of  storms,  of  blind  forces 
creating,  recreating  and  destroying.  And,  dur- 
ing these  minutes  of  halting  meditation,  where 
men  in  Basque  caps  of  a  temperament  other  than 
his,  surrounded  him  to  congratulate  him,  he 
made  no  reply,  he  did  not  listen,  he  felt  only  the 
ephemeral  plenitude  of  his  own  vigor,  of  his 
youth,  of  his  will,  and  he  said  to  himself  that  he 
wished  to  use  harshly  and  desperately  all  things, 
to  try  anything,  without  the  obstacle  of  vain 
fears,  of  vain  church  scruples,  in  order  to  take 
back  the  young  girl  whom  his  soul  and  his  flesh 
desired,  who  was  the  unique  one  and  the 
betrothed — 

When  the  game  had  ended  gloriously  for  him, 
he  returned  alone,  sad  and  resolute, — proud  of 
having  won,  of  having  known  how  to  preserve 
his  agile  skilfulness,  and  realizing  that  it  was  a 
means  in  life,  a  source  of  money  and  of  strength, 
to  have  remained  one  of  the  chief  ball-players  of 
the  Basque  country. 

Under  the  black  sky,  there  were  still  the  same 


Ramuntcrio. 


tints  exaggerated  by  everything,  the  same  sombre 
horizon.  And  still  the  same  breaths  from  the 
south,  dry  and  warm,  agitors  of  muscles  and  of 
thought. 

However,  the  clouds  had  descended,  descend- 
ed, and  soon  this  weather,  these  appearances 
would  change  and  finish.  He  knew  it,  as  do  all 
the  countrymen  accustomed  to  look  at  the  sky: 
it  was  only  the  announcement  of  an  autumn 
squall  to  close  the  series  of  lukewarm  winds,  — 
of  a  decisive  shake-up  to  finish  despoiling  the 
woods  of  their  leaves.  Immediately  after  would 
come  the  long  showers,  chilling  everything,  the 
mists  making  the  mountains  confused  and 
distant.  And  it  would  be  the  dull  rain  of  winter, 
stopping  the  saps,  making  temporary  projects 
languid,  extinguishing  ardor  and  revolt  — 

Now  the  first  drops  of  water  were  beginning 
to  fall  on  the  road,  separate  and  heavy  on  the 
strewn  leaves. 

As  the  day  before,  when  he  returned  home,  at 
twilight,  his  mother  was  alone. 

He  found  her  asleep,  in  a  bad  sleep,  agitated, 
burning. 

Rambling  in  his  house  he  tried,  in  order  to 
make  it  less  sinister,  to  light  in  the  large,  lower 
chimney  a  fire  of  branches,  but  it  went  out  smok- 
ing. Outside,  torrents  of  rain  fell.  Through  the 


Ramuntcho. 


windows,  as  through  gray  shrouds,  the  village 
hardly  appeared,  effaced  under  a  winter  squall. 
The  wind  and  the  rain  whipped  the  walls  of  the 
isolated  house,  around  which,  once  more,  would 
thicken  the  grand  blackness  of  the  country  in 
rainy  nights  —  that  grand  blackness,  that  grand 
silence,  to  which  he  had  long  been  unaccustomed. 
And  in  his  childish  heart,  came  little  by  little,  a 
cold  of  solitude  and  of  abandonment;  he  lost 
even  his  energy,  the  consciousness  of  his  love,  of 
his  strength  and  of  his  youth;  he  felt  vanishing, 
before  the  misty  evening,  all  his  projects  of  strug- 
gle and  of  resistance.  The  future  which  he  had 
formed  a  moment  ago  became  miserable  or 
chimerical  in  his  eyes,  that  future  of  a  pelota 
player,  of  a  poor  amuser  of  the  crowds,  at  the 
mercy  of  a  malady  or  of  a  moment  of  weakness  —  • 
His  hopes  of  the  day-time  were  going  out,  based, 
doubtless,  on  unstable  things,  fleeing  now  in  the 
night  — 

Then  he  felt  transported,  as  in  his  childhood, 
toward  that  soft  refuge  which  was  his  mother; 
he  went  up,  on  tiptoe,  to  see  her,  even  asleep, 
and  to  remain  there,  near  her  bed,  while  she 
slept. 

And,  when  he  had  lighted  in  the  room,  far  from 
her,  a  discreet  lamp,  she  appeared  to  him  more 
changed  than  she  had  been  by  the  fever  of  yester- 


Ramuntcho.  2 1 1 

day;  the  possibility  presented  itself,  more  fright- 
ful to  his  mind,  of  losing  her,  of  being  alone,  of 
never  feeling  again  on  his  cheek  the  caress  6f  her 
head. — Moreover,  for  the  first  time,  she  seemed 
old  to  him,  and,  in  the  memory  of  all  the  decep- 
tions which  she  had  suffered  because  of  him,  he 
felt  a  pity  for  her,  a  tender  and  infinite  pity,  at 
sight  of  her  wrinkles  which  he  had  not  before 
observed,  of  her  hair  recently  whitened  at  the 
temples.  Oh,  a  desolate  pity  and  hopeless,  with 
the  conviction  that  it  was  too  late  now  to  arrange 
life  better. — And  something  painful,  against 
which  there  was  no  possible  resistance,  shook 
his  chest,  contracted  his  young  face;  objects  be- 
came confused  to  his  view,  and,  in  the  need  of 
imploring,  of  asking  for  mercy,  he  let  himself  fall 
on  his  knees,  his  forehead  on  his  mother's  bed, 
weeping  at  last,  weeping  hot  tears — 


212  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  V. 

"And  whom  did  you  see  in  the  village,  my 
son?"  she  asked,  the  next  morning  during  the 
improvement  which  returned  every  time,  in  the 
first  hours  of  the  day,  after  the  fever  had  sub- 
sided. 

"And  whom  did  you  see  in  the  village,  my 
son? — "  In  talking,  she  tried  to  retain  an  air  of 
gaiety,  of  saying  indifferent  things,  in  the  fear  of 
attacking  grave  subjects  and  of  provoking  dis- 
quieting replies. 

"  I  saw  Arrochkoa,  mother,"  he  replied,  in  a 
tone  which  brought  back  suddenly  the  burning 
questions. 

"Arrochkoa! — And  how  did  he  behave  with 
you?  " 

"Oh,  he  talked  to  me  as  if  I  had  been  his 
brother." 

"  Yes,  I  know,  I  know. — Oh,  it  was  not  he 
who  made  her  do  it — " 

"  He  said  even—" 

He  did  not  dare  to  continue  now,  and  he 
lowered  his  head. 


Ramuntcho.  213 

"  He  said  what,  my  son?  " 
"Well,  that — that  it  was  hard  to  put  her  in  prison 
there —  that  perhaps — that,  even  now,  if  she  saw 
me,  he  was  not  far  from  thinking — " 

She  straightened  under  the  shock  of  what  she 
had  just  suspected;  with  her  thin  hands  she  part- 
ed her  hair,  newly  whitened,  and  her  eyes  became 
again  young  and  sharp,  in  an  expression  almost 
wicked  from  joy,  from  avenged  pride: 

"He  said  that,  he!—" 

"  Would  you  forgive  me,  mother — if  I  tried?  " 

She  took  his  two  hands  and  they  remained 
silent,  not  daring,  with  their  scruples  as  Catholics, 
to  utter  the  sacrilegious  thing  which  was  foment- 
ing in  their  heads.  In  the  depth  of  her  eyes, 
the  evil  spark  went  out. 

"  Forgive  you?  "  she  said  in  a  low  voice,  "Oh, 
I — you  know  very  well  that  I  would. — But  do 
not  do  this,  my  son,  I  pray  you,  do  not  do  it;  it 
would  bring  misfortune  to  both  of  you ! — Do  not 
think  of  it,  my  Ramuntcho,  never  think  of  it — " 

Then,  they  hushed,  hearing  the  steps  of  the 
physician  who  was  coming  up  for  his  daily  visit. 
And  it  was  the  only  time,  the  supreme  time  when 
they  were  to  talk  of  it  in  life. 

But  Ramuntcho  knew  now  that,  even  after 
death,  she  would  not  condemn  him  for  having 
attempted,  or  for  having  committed  it:  and  this 


214  Ramuntcho. 

pardon  was  sufficient  for  him,  and,  now  that  he 
felt  sure  of  obtaining  it,  the  greatest  barrier,  be- 
tween his  sweetheart  and  him,  had  now  suddenly 
fallen. 


Ramuntcho.  215 


CHAPTER  VI. 

In  the  evening,  when  the  fever  returned,  she 
seemed  already  much  more  dangerously  affected. 

On  her  robust  body,  the  malady  had  violently 
taken  hold, — the  malady  recognized  too  late,  and 
insufficiently  nursed  because  of  her  stubbornness 
as  a  peasant,  because  of  her  incredulous  disdain 
for  physicians  and  medicine. 

And  little  by  little,  in  Ramuntcho,  the  fright- 
ful thought  of  losing  her  installed  itself  in  a 
dominant  place ;  during  the  hours  of  watchfulness 
spent  near  her  bed,  silent  and  alone,  he  was  be- 
ginning to  face  the  reality  of  that  separation,  the 
horror  of  that  death  and  of  that  burial, — even  all 
the  lugubrious  morrows,  all  the  aspects  of  his 
future  life :  the  house  which  he  would  have  to  sell 
before  quitting  the  country;  then,  perhaps,  the 
desperate  attempt  at  the  convent  of  Amezqueta; 
then  the  departure,  probably  solitary  and  without 
desire  to  return,  for  unknown  America — 

The  idea  also  of  the  great  secret  which  she 
would  carry  with  her  forever, — of  the  secret  of  his 
birth, — tormented  him  more  from  hour  to  hour. 

Then,  bending  over  her,  and,  trembling,  as  if 


2 1 6  Ramuntcho. 

he  were  about  to  commit  an  impious  thing  in  a 
church,  he  dared  to  say: 

"Mother! — Mother,  tell  me  now  who  my 
father  is!" 

She  shuddered  at  first  under  the  supreme 
question,  realizing  well,  that  if  he  dared  to  ques- 
tion her  thus,  it  was  because  she  was  lost.  Then, 
she  hesitated  for  a  moment:  in  her  head,  boiling 
from  fever,  there  was  a  battle ;  her  duty,  she  dis- 
cerned well  no  longer;  her  obstinacy  which  had 
lasted  for  so  many  years  faltered  almost  at  this 
hour,  in  presence  of  the  sudden  apparition  of 
death — 

But,  resolved  at  last  forever,  she  replied  at 
once,  in  the  brusque  tone  of  her  bad  days: 

"  Your  father! — And  what  is  the  use,  my  son? 
— What  do  you  want  of  your  father  who  for 
twenty  years  has  never  thought  of  you? — 

No,  it  was  decided,  ended,  she  would  not  tell. 
Anyway,  it  was  too  late  now;  at  the  moment 
when  she  would  disappear,  enter  into  the  inert 
powerlessness  of  the  dead,  how  could  she  risk 
changing  so  completely  the  life  of  that  son  over 
whom  she  would  no  longer  watch,  how  could  she 
surrender  him  to  his  father,  who  perhaps  would 
make  of  him  a  disbeliever  and  a  disenchanted 
man  like  himself!  What  a  responsibility  and 
what  an  immense  terror! — 


Ramuntcho.  217 

Her  decision  having  been  taken  irrevocably, 
she  thought  of  herself,  feeling  for  the  first  time 
that  life  was  closing  behind  her,  and  joined  her 
hands  for  a  sombre  prayer. 

As  for  Ramuntcho,  after  this  attempt  to  learn, 
after  this  great  effort  which  had  almost  seemed 
a  profanation  to  him,  he  bent  his  head  before  his 
mother's  will  and  questioned  no  longer. 


2 1 8  Ramuntcho. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

It  went  very  quickly  now,  with  the  drying 
fevers  that  made  her  cheeks  red,  her  nostrils 
pinched,  or  with  the  exhaustion  of  baths  of  per- 
spiration, her  pulse  hardly  beating. 

And  Ramuntcho  had  no  other  thought  than 
his  mother;  the  image  of  Gracieuse  ceased  to 
visit  him  during  these  funereal  days. 

She  was  going,  Franchita;  she  was  going,  mute 
and  as  if  indifferent,  asking  for  nothing,  never 
complaining — 

Once,  however,  as  he  was  watching,  she  called 
him  suddenly  with  a  poor  voice  of  anguish,  to 
throw  her  arms  around  him,  to  draw  him  to  her, 
lean  her  head  on  his  cheek.  And,  in  that  minute, 
Ramuntcho  saw  pass  in  her  eyes  the  great  Ter- 
ror— that  of  the  flesh  which  feels  that  it  is  finish- 
ing, that  of  the  men  and  that  of  the  beasts,  the 
horrible  and  the  same  for  all. — A  believer,  she 
was  that  a  little;  practising  rather,  like  so  many 
other  women  around  her;  timid  in  the  face  of 
dogmas,  of  observances,  of  services,  but  without 
a  clear  conception  of  the  world  beyond,  without 
a  luminous  hope. — Heaven,  all  the  beautiful 


Ramuntcho.  219 

things  promised  after  life. — Yes,  perhaps. — But 
still,  the  black  hole  was  there,  near  and  certain, 
where  she  would  have  to  turn  into  dust. — What 
was  sure,  what  was  inexorable,  was  the  fact  that 
never,  never  more  would  her  destroyed  visage 
lean  in  a  real  manner  on  that  of  Ramuntcho ;  then, 
in  the  doubt  of  having  a  mind  which  would  fly, 
in  the  horror  and  the  misery  of  annihilation,  of 
becoming  powder  and  nothing,  she  wanted  again 
kisses  from  that  son,  and  she  clutched  at  him  as 
clutch  the  wrecked  who  fall  into  the  black  and 
deep  waters — 

He  understood  all  this,  which  the  poor,  fading 
eyes  said  so  well.  And  the  pity  so  tender,  which 
he  had  already  felt  at  seeing  the  wrinkles  and  the 
white  hairs  of  his  mother,  overflowed  like  a  flood 
from  his  very  young  heart;  he  responded  to  this 
appeal  with  all  that  one  may  give  of  desolate 
clasps  and  embraces. 

But  it  did  not  last  long.  She  had  never  been 
one  of  those  who  are  enervated  for  long,  or  at 
least,  let  it  appear.  Her  arms  unclasped,  her 
head  fallen  back,  she  closed  her  eyes  again,  un- 
conscious now, — or  stoical — 

And  Ramuntcho,  standing,  not  daring  to  touch 
her,  wept  heavy  tears,  without  noise,  turning  his 
head, — while,  in  the  distance,  the  parish  bell  be- 
gan to  ring  the  curfew,  sang  the  tranquil  peace 


220  Ramuntcho. 

of  the  village,  filled  the  air  with  vibrations  soft, 
protective,  advising  sound  sleep  to  those  who 
have  morrows — 

The  following  morning,  after  having  confessed, 
she  passed  out  of  life,  silent  and  haughty,  having 
felt  a  sort  of  shame  for  her  suffering, — while  the 
same  bell  rang  slowly  her  agony. 

And  at  night,  Ramuntcho  found  himself  alone, 
beside  that  thing  in  bed  and  cold,  which  is  pre- 
served and  looked  at  for  several  hours,  but  which 
one  must  make  haste  to  bury  in  the  earth — 


Ramuntcho.  221 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Eight  days  after. 

At  the  fall  of  night,  while  a  bad  mountain 
squall  twisted  the  branches  of  the  trees,  Ramun- 
tcho entered  his  deserted  house  where  the  gray  of 
death  seemed  scattered  everywhere.  A  little  of 
winter  had  passed  over  the  Basque  land,  a  little 
frost,  burning  the  annual  flowers,  ending  the  il- 
lusory summer  of  December.  In  front  of  Fran- 
chita's  door,  the  geraniums,  the  dahlias  had  just 
died,  and  the  path  which  led  to  the  house,  which 
no  one  cared  for,  disappeared  under  the  mass  of 
yellow  leaves. 

For  Ramuntcho,  this  first  week  of  mourning 
had  been  occupied  by  the  thousand  details  that 
rock  sorrow.  Proud  also,  he  had  desired  that 
all  should  be  done  in  a  luxurious  manner,  ac- 
cording to  the  old  usages  of  the  parish.  His 
mother  had  been  buried  in  a  coffin  of  black  velvet 
ornamented  with  silver  nails.  Then,  there  had 
been  mortuary  masses,  attended  by  the  neigh- 
bors in  long  capes,  the  women  enveloped  and 
hooded  with  black.  And  all  this  represented  a 
great  deal  of  expense  for  him,  who  was  poor. 


222  Ramuntcho. 

Of  the  sum  given  formerly,  at  the  time  of  his 
birth,  by  his  unknown  father,  little  remained,  the 
greater  part  having  been  lost  through  unfaithful 
bankers.  And  now,  he  would  have  to  quit  the 
house,  sell  the  dear  familiar  furniture,  realize  the 
most  money  possible  for  the  flight  to  America — 

This  time,  he  returned  home  peculiarly  dis- 
turbed, because  he  was  to  do  a  thing,  postponed 
from  day  to  day,  about  which  his  conscience  was 
not  at  rest.  He  had  already  examined,  picked 
out,  all  that  belonged  to  his  mother;  but  the  box 
containing  her  papers  and  her  letters  was  still 
intact — and  to-night  he  would  open  it,  perhaps. 

He  was  not  sure  that  death,  as  many  persons 
think,  gives  the  right  to  those  wrho  remain  to 
read  letters,  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  those  who 
have  just  gone.  To  burn  without  looking 
seemed  to  him  more  respectful,  more  honest. 
But  it  was  also  to  destroy  forever  the  means  of 
discovering  the  one  whose  abandoned  son  he 
was. — Then  what  should  he  do? — And  from 
whom  could  he  take  advice,  since  he  had  no  one 
in  the  world? 

In  the  large  chimney  he  lit  the  evening  fire; 
then  he  got  from  an  upper  room  the  disquieting 
box,  placed  it  on  a  table  near  the  fire,  beside  his 
lamp,  and  sat  down  to  reflect  again.  In  the  face 
of  these  papers,  almost  sacred,  almost  prohibited, 


Ramuntcho.  223 

which  he  would  touch  and  which  death  alone 
could  have  placed  in  his  hands,  he  had  in  this 
moment  the  consciousness,  in  a  more  heart- 
breaking manner,  of  the  irrevocable  departure  of 
his  mother;  tears  returned  to  him  and  he  wept 
there,  alone,  in  the  silence — • 

At  last  he  opened  the  box — 

His  arteries  beat  heavily.  Under  the  sur- 
rounding trees,  in  the  obscure  solitude,  he  felt 
that  forms  were  moving,  to  look  at  him  through 
the  window-panes.  He  felt  breaths  strange  to 
his  own  chest,  as  if  some  one  was  breathing  be- 
hind him.  Shades  assembled,  interrested  in  what 
he  was  about  to  do. — The  house  was  crowded 
with  phantoms — 

They  were  letters,  preserved  there  for  more 
than  twenty  years,  all  in  the  same  handwriting, — 
one  of  those  handwritings,  at  once  negligent  and 
easy,  which  men  of  the  world  have  and  which,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  simple  minded,  are  an  indication 
of  great  social  difference.  And  at  first,  a  vague 
dream  of  protection,  of  elevation  and  of  wealth 
diverted  the  course  of  his  thoughts. — He  had  no 
doubt  about  the  hand  which  had  written  them, 
those  letters,  and  he  held  them  tremblingly,  not 
daring  to  read  them,  nor  even  to  look  at  the  name 
with  which  they  were  signed. 

One  only  had  retained  its  envelope;  then  he 


224  Ramuntcho. 

read  the  address :  "  To  Madame  Franchita 
Duval." — Oh!  yes,  he  remembered  having  heard 
that  his  mother,  at  the  time  of  her  disappearance 
from  the  Basque  country,  had  taken  that  name 
for  a  while. — Following  this,  was  an  indication 
of  street  and  number,  which  it  pained  him  to 
read  without  his  being  able  to  understand  why, 
which  made  the  blood  come  to  his  cheeks;  then 
the  name  of  that  large  city,  wherein  he  was  born. 
— With  fixed  eyes,  he  stayed  there,  looking  no 
longer. — And  suddenly,  he  had  the  horrible 
vision  of  that  clandestine  establishment:  in  a 
suburban  apartment,  his  mother,  young,  elegant, 
mistress  of  some  rich  idler,  or  of  some  officer 
perhaps! — In  the  regiment  he  had  known  some 
of  these  establishments,  which  doubtless  are  all 
alike,  and  he  had  found  in  them  for  himself  un- 
expected adventures. — A  dizziness  seized  him,  to 
catch  a  glimpse  thus  under  a  new  aspect  of  the 
one  whom  he  had  venerated  so  much;  the  dear 
past  faltered  behind  him,  as  if  to  fall  into  a 
desolating  abyss.  And  his  despair  turned  into 
a  sudden  execration  for  the  one  who  had  given 
life  to  him  through  a  caprice — 

Oh!  to  burn  them,  to  burn  them  as  quickly  as 
possible,  these  letters  of  misfortune ! — And  he  be- 
gan to  throw  them  one  by  one  into  the  fire,  where 
they  were  consumed  by  sudden  flames. 


Ramuntcho.  225 

A  photograph,  however,  came  out  of  them,  fell 
on  the  floor;  then  he  could  not  refrain  from 
taking  it  to  the  lamp  to  see  it. 

And  his  impression  was  heart-rending,  during 
the  few  seconds  when  his  eyes  met  the  half  effaced 
ones  of  the  yellowed  image! — It  resembled  him! 
—He  found,  with  profound  fear,  something  of 
himself  in  the  unknown.  And  instinctively  he 
turned  round,  asking  himself  if  the  spectres  in  the 
obscure  corners  had  not  come  near  behind  him 
to  look  also. 

It  had  hardly  an  appreciable  duration,  that 
silent  interview,  unique  and  supreme,  with  his 
father.  To  the  fire  also,  the  image!  He  threw 
it,  with  a  gesture  of  anger  and  of  terror,  among 
the  ashes  of  the  last  letters,  and  all  left  soon  only 
a  little  mass  of  black  dust,  extinguishing  the  clear 
flames  of  the  branches. 

Finished!  The  box  was  empty.  He  threw 
on  the  floor  his  cap  which  gave  him  a  headache, 
and  straightened  himself,  with  perspiration  on 
his  forehead  and  a  buzzing  at  the  temples. 

Finished!  Annihilated,  all  these  memories  of 
sin  and  of  shame.  And  now  the  things  of  life  ap- 
peared to  him  to  regain  their  former  balance ;  he 
regained  his  soft  veneration  for  his  mother, 
whose  memory  it  seemed  to  him  he  had  purified, 
avenged  also  a  little,  by  this  disdainful  execution. 


226  Ramuntcho. 

Therefore,  his  destiny  had  been  fixed  to-night 
forever.  He  would  remain  the  Ramuntcho  of 
other  times,  the  "son  of  Franchita,"  player  of 
pelota  and  smuggler,  free,  freed  from  everything, 
owing  nothing  to  and  asking  nothing  from  any- 
body. And  he  felt  serene,  without  remorse, 
without  fright,  either,  in  this  mortuary  house, 
from  which  the  shades  had  just  disappeared, 
peaceful  now  and  friendly — 


Ramimtcho,  227 


CHAPTER  IX. 

At  the  frontier,  in  a  mountain  hamlet.  A 
black  night,  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning; 
a  winter  night  inundated  by  cold  and  heavy  rain. 
At  the  front  of  a  sinister  house  which  casts  no 
light  outside,  Ramuntcho  loads  his  shoulders 
with  a  heavy  smuggled  box,  under  the  rippling 
rain,  in  the  midst  of  a  tomb-like  obscurity.  It- 
choua's  voice  commands  secretly, — as  if  one 
hardly  touched  with  a  bow  the  last  strings  of  a 
bass  viol, — and  around  him,  in  the  absolute 
darkness,  one  divines  the  presence  of  other 
smugglers  similarly  loaded,  ready  to  start  on  an 
adventure. 

It  is  now  more  than  ever  Ramuntcho's  life,  to 
run  almost  every  night,  especially  on  the  cloud- 
less and  moonless  nights  when  one  sees  nothing, 
when  the  Pyrenees  are  an  immense  chaos  of 
shade.  Amassing  as  much  money  as  he  can  for 
his  flight,  he  is  in  all  the  smuggling  expeditions, 
as  well  in  those  that  bring  a  suitable  remunera- 
tion as  in  those  where  one  risks  death  for  a  hund- 
red cents.  And  ordinarily,  Arrochkoa  ac- 


228  Ramuntcho. 

companies  him,  without  necessity,  in  sport  and 
for  a  whim. 

They  have  become  inseparable,  Arrochkoa, 
Ramuntcho, — and  they  talk  freely  of  their  pro- 
jects about  Gracieuse,  Arrochkoa  seduced  es- 
pecially by  the  attraction  of  some  fine  prowess, 
by  the  joy  of  taking  a  nun  away  from  the  church, 
of  undoing  the  plans  of  his  old,  hardened  mother, 
— and  Ramuntcho,  in  spite  of  his  Christian 
scruples  which  affect  him  still,  making  of  this 
dangerous  project  his  only  hope,  his  only  reason 
for  being  and  for  acting.  For  a  month,  al- 
most, the  attempt  has  been  decided  upon  in 
theory  and,  in  their  long  talks  in  the  December 
nights,  on  the  roads  where  they  walk,  or  in  the 
corners  of  the  village  cider  mills  where  they  sit 
apart,  the  means  of  execution  are  discussed  by 
them,  as  if  the  question  was  a  simple  frontier 
undertaking.  They  must  act  very  quickly,  con- 
cludes Arrochkoa  always,  they  must  act  in  the 
surprise  of  a  first  interview  which  shall  be  for 
Gracieuse  a  very  disturbing  thing;  they  must  act 
without  giving  her  time  to  think  or  to  recant, 
they  must  try  something  like  kidnapping — 

"  If  you  knew,"  he  says,  "what  is  that  little 
convent  of  Amezqueta  where  they  have  placed 
her:  four  old,  good  sisters  with  her,  in  an  isolated 
house! — I  have  my  horse,  you  know,  who  gal- 


Ramuntcho.  229 

lops  so  quickly;  once  the  nun  is  in  a  carriage  with 
you,  who  can  catch  her? — " 

And  to-night  they  have  resolved  to  take  into 
their  confidence  Itchoua  himself,  a  man  ac- 
customed to  suspicious  adventures,  valuable  in 
assaults  at  night,  and  who,  for  money,  is  capable 
of  everything. 

The  place  from  which  they  start  this  time  for 
the  habitual  smuggling  expedition  is  named 
Landachkoa,  and  it  is  situated  in  France  at  ten 
minutes'  distance  from  Spain.  The  inn,  solitary 
and  old,  assumes  as  soon  as  the  night  falls,  the 
air  of  a  den  of  thieves ;  at  this  moment  while  the 
smugglers  come  out  of  one  door,  it  is  full  of 
Spanish  carbineers  who  have  familiarly  crossed 
the  frontier  to  divert  themselves  here  and  who 
drink  while  singing.  And  the  hostess,  accus- 
tomed to  these  nocturnal  affairs,  has  said  joyfully, 
a  moment  ago,  in  Basque  tongue  to  Itchoua's 
folks: 

"  It  is  all  right!  They  are  all  drunk,  you  can 
go  out! " 

Go  out!  It  is  easier  to  advise  than  to  do!  You 
are  drenched  at  the  first  steps  and  your  feet  slip 
on  the  mud,  despite  the  aid  of  your  sticks,  on  the 
stiff  slopes  of  the  paths.  They  do  not  see  one 
another;  they  see  nothing,  neither  the  walls  of 
the  hamlet  along  which  they  pass  nor  the  trees 


230  Ramuntcho. 

afterward,  nor  the  rocks;  they  are  like  blind  men, 
groping  and  slipping  under  a  deluge,  with  the 
music  of  rain  in  their  ears  which  makes  them 
deaf. 

And  Ramuntcho,  who  makes  this  trip  for  the 
first  time,  has  no  idea  of  the  passages  which  they 
are  to  go  through,  strikes  here  and  there  his  load 
against  black  things  which  are  branches  ot 
beeches,  or  slips  with  his  two  feet,  falters, 
straightens  up,  catches  himself  by  planting  at 
random  his  iron-pointed  stick  in  the  soil.  They 
are  the  last  on  the  march,  Arrochkoa  and  Ra- 
muntcho, following  the  band  by  ear; — and  those 
who  precede  them  make  no  more  noise  with 
their  sandals  than  wolves  in  a  forest. 

In  all,  fifteen  smugglers  on  a  distance  of  fifty 
metres,  in  the  thick  black  of  the  mountain,  under 
the  incessant  sprinkling  of  the  shower;  they  car- 
ry boxes  full  of  jewels,  of  watches,  of  chains,  of 
rosaries,  or  bundles  of  Lyons  silk,  wrapped  in 
oilcloth;  in  front,  loaded  with  merchandise  less 
valuable,  walk  two  men  who  are  the  skirmishers, 
those  who  will  attract,  if  necessary,  the  guns  of 
the  Spaniards  and  will  then  take  flight,  throwing 
away  everything.  All  talk  in  a  low  voice,  despite 
the  drumming  of  the  rain  which  already  stifles 
sounds — 

The  one  who  precedes  Ramuntcho  turns  round 
to  warn  him: 


Ramuntcho.  231 

"  Here  is  a  torrent  in  front  of  us — "  (Its 
presence  would  have  been  guessed  by  its  noise 
louder  than  that  of  the  rain — )  "  We  must  cross 
it!" 

"Ah!— Cross  it  how?    Wade  in  the  water?—" 

"  No,  the  water  is  too  deep.  Follow  us.  There 
is  a  tree  trunk  over  it." 

Groping,  Ramuntcho  finds  that  tree  trunk, 
wet,  slippery  and  round.  He  stands,  advancing 
on  this  monkey's  bridge  in  a  forest,  carrying  his 
heavy  load,  while  under  him  the  invisible  torrent 
roars.  And  he  crosses,  none  knows  how,  in  the 
midst  of  this  intensity  of  black  and  of  this  noise 
of  water. 

On  the  other  shore  they  have  to  increase  pre- 
caution and  silence.  There  are  no  more  moun- 
tain paths,  frightful  descents,  under  the  night, 
more  oppressing,  of  the  woods.  They  have 
reached  a  sort  of  plain  wherein  the  feet  penetrate; 
the  sandals  attached  to  nervous  legs  cause  a 
noise  of  beaten  water.  The  eyes  of  the  smug- 
glers, their  cat-like  eyes,  more  and  more  dilated 
by  the  obscurity,  perceive  confusedly  that  there 
is  free  space  around,  that  there  is  no  longer  the 
closing  in  of  branches.  They  breathe  better  also 
and  walk  with  a  more  regular  pace  that  rests 
them — 

But  the  bark  of  dogs  immobilizes  them  all  in 


232  Ramuntcho. 

a  sudden  manner,  as  if  petrified  under  the  shower. 
For  a  quarter  of  an  hour  they  wait,  without  talk- 
ing or  moving;  on  their  chests,  the  perspiration 
runs,  mingled  with  the  rain  that  enters  by  their 
shirt  collars  and  falls  to  their  belts. 

By  dint  of  listening,  they  hear  the  buzz  of  their 
ears,  the  beat  of  their  own  arteries. 

And  this  tension  of  their  senses  is,  in  their 
trade,  what  they  all  like;  it  gives  to  them  a  sort 
of  joy  almost  animal,  it  doubles  the  life  of  the 
muscles  in  them,  who  are  beings  of  the  past;  it 
is  a  recall  of  the  most  primitive  human  impres- 
sions in  the  forests  or  the  jungles  of  original 
epochs. — Centuries  of  civilization  will  be  neces- 
sary to  abolish  this  taste  for  dangerous  surprises 
which  impels  certain  children  to  play  hide  and 
seek,  certain  men  to  lie  in  ambush,  to  skirmish 
in  wars,  or  to  smuggle — 

They  have  hushed,  the  watch-dogs,  quieted  or 
distracted,  their  attentive  scent  preoccupied  by 
something  else.  The  vast  silence  has  returned, 
less  reassuring,  ready  to  break,  perhaps,  because 
beasts  are  watching.  And,  at  a  low  command 
from  Itchoua,  the  men  begin  again  their  march, 
slower  and  more  hesitating,  in  the  night  of  the 
plain,  a  little  bent,  a  little  lowered  on  their  legs, 
like  wild  animals  on  the  alert. 

Before  them  is  the  Nivelle;  they  do  not  see  it, 


Ramuntcho.  233 

since  they  see  nothing,  but  they  hear  it  run,  and 
now  long,  flexible  things  are  in  the  way  of  their 
steps,  are  crushed  by  their  bodies:  the  reeds  on 
the  shores.  The  Nivelle  is  the  frontier;  they  will 
have  to  cross  it  on  a  series  of  slippery  rocks,  leap- 
ing from  stone  to  stone,  despite  the  loads  that 
make  the  legs  heavy. 

But  before  doing  this  they  halt  on  the  shore 
to  collect  themselves  and  rest  a  little.  And  first, 
they  call  the  roll  in  a  low  voice:  all  are  there  The 
boxes  have  been  placed  in  the  grass;  they  seem 
clearer  spots,  almost  perceptible  to  trained  eyes, 
while,  on  the  darkness  in  the  background,  the 
men,  standing,make  long,straight  marks, blacker 
than  the  emptiness  of  the  plain.  Passing  by  Ra- 
muntcho, Itchoua  has  whispered  in  his  ear: 

"  When  will  you  tell  me  about  your  plan?  " 

"  In  a  moment,  at  our  return ! — Oh,  do  not 
fear,  Itchoua,  I  will  tell  you !  " 

At  this  moment  when  his  chest  is  heaving  and 
his  muscles  are  in  action,  all  his  faculties  doubled 
and  exasperated  by  his  trade,  he  does  not  hesi- 
tate, Ramuntcho;  in  the  present  exaltation  of 
his  strength  and  of  his  combativeness  he  knows 
no  moral  obstacles  nor  scruples.  The  idea  which 
came  to  his  accomplice  to  associate  himself  with 
Itchoua  frightens  him  no  longer.  So  much  the 
worse!  He  will  surrender  to  the  advice  of  that 


234  Ramuntcho. 

man  of  stratagem  and  of  violence,  even  if  he  must 
go  to  the  extreme  of  kidnapping  and  house- 
breaking.  He  is,  to-night,  the  rebel  from  whom 
has  been  taken  the  companion  of  his  life,  the 
adored  one,  the  one  who  may  not  be  replaced; 
he  wants  her,  at  the  risk  of  everything. — And 
while  he  thinks  of  her,  in  the  progressive  languor 
of  that  halt,  he  desires  her  suddenly  with  his 
senses,  in  a  young,  savage  outbreak,  in  a  man- 
ner unexpected  and  sovereign — 

The  immobility  is  prolonged,  the  respirations 
are  calmer.  And,  while  the  men  shake  their 
dripping  caps,  pass  their  hands  on  their  fore- 
heads to  wipe  out  drops  of  rain  and  perspiration 
that  veil  the  eyes,  the  first  sensation  of  cold  comes 
to  them,  of  a  damp  and  profound  cold;  their  wet 
clothes  chill  them,  their  thoughts  weaken;  little 
by  little  a  sort  of  torpor  benumbs  them  in  the 
thick  darkness,  under  the  incessant  winter  rain. 

They  are  accustomed  to  this,  trained  to  cold 
and  to  dampness,  they  are  hardened  prowlers 
who  go  to  places  where,  and  at  hours  when, 
other  men  never  appear,  they  are  inaccessible  to 
vague  frights  of  the  darkness,  they  are  capable 
of  sleeping  without  shelter  anywhere  in  the 
blackest  of  rainy  nights,  in  dangerous  marshes 
or  hidden  ravines — 

Now  the  rest  has  lasted  long:  enousfh.     This  is 


Ramuntcho.  235 

the  decisive  instant  when  the  frontier  is  to  be 
crossed.  All  muscles  stiffen,  ears  stretch,  eyes 
dilate. 

First,  the  skirmishers ;  then,  one  after  another, 
the  bundle  carriers,  the  box  carriers,  each  one 
loaded  with  a  weight  of  forty  kilos,  on  the 
shoulders  or  on  the  head.  Slipping  here  and 
there  among  the  round  rocks,  stumbling  in  the 
water,  everybody  crosses,  lands  on  the  other 
shore.  Here  they  are  on  the  soil  of  Spain!  They 
have  to  cross,  without  gunshots  or  bad  meetings, 
a  distance  of  two  hundred  metres  to  reach  an 
Isolated  farm  which  is  the  receiving  shop  of  the 
chief  of  the  Spanish  smugglers,  and  once  more 
the  game  will  have  been  played! 

Naturally,  it  is  without  light,  obscure  and 
sinister,  that  farm.  Noiselessly  and  groping  they 
enter  in  a  file ;  then,  on  the  last  who  enter,  enor- 
mous locks  of  the  door  are  drawn.  At  last!  Bar- 
ricaded and  rescued,  all!  And  the  treasury  of 
the  Queen  Regent  has  been  frustrated,  again  to- 
night, of  a  thousand  francs! — 

Then,  fagots  are  lighted  in  the  chimney,  a 
candle  on  the  table;  they  see  one  another,  they 
recognize  one  another,  smiling  at  the  success. 
The  security,  the  truce  of  rain  over  their  heads, 
the  flame  that  dances  and  warms,  the  cider  and 
the  whiskey  that  fill  the  glasses,  bring  back  to 


236  Ramuntcho. 

these  men  noisy  joy  after  compelled  silence. 
They  talk  gaily,  and  the  tall,  white-haired,  old 
chief  who  receives  them  all  at  this  undue  hour, 
announces  that  he  will  give  to  his  village  a  beau- 
tiful square  for  the  pelota  game,  the  plans  of 
which  have  been  drawn  and  the  cost  of  which 
will  be  ten  thousand  francs. 

"  Now,  tell  me  your  affair,"  insists  Itchoua, 
in  Ramuntcho's  ear.  "Oh,  I  suspect  what  it  is! 
Gracieuse,  eh? — That  is  it,  is  it  not? — It  is  hard 
you  know. — I  do  not  like  to  do  things  against 
my  religion,  you  know. — Then,  I  have  my  place 
as  a  chorister,  which  I  might  lose  in  such  a 
game. — Let  us  see,  how  much  money  will  you 
give  me  if  I  succeed? — " 

He  had  foreseen,  Ramuntcho,  that  this  sombre 
aid  would  cost  him  a  great  deal,  Itchoua  being, 
in  truth,  a  churchman,  whose  conscience  would 
have  to  be  bought;  and,  much  disturbed,  with  a 
flush  on  his  cheeks,  Ramuntcho  grants,  after  a 
discussion,  a  thousand  francs.  Anyway,  if  he  is 
piling  up  money,  it  is  only  to  get  Gracieuse,  and 
if  enough  remains  for  him  to  go  to  America  with 
her,  what  matters  it? — 

And  now  that  his  secret  is  known  to  Itchoua, 
now  that  his  cherished  project  is  being  elaborated 
in  that  obstinate  and  sharp  brain,  it  seems  to 
Ramuntcho  that  he  has  made  a  decisive  step  to- 


Ramuntcho.  237 

ward  the  execution  of  his  plan,  that  all  has  sud- 
denly become  real  and  approaching.  Then,  in 
the  midst  of  the  lugubrious  decay  of  the  place, 
among  these  men  who  are  less  than  ever  similar 
to  him,  he  isolates  himself  in  an  immense  hope 
of  love. 

They  drink  for  a  last  time  together,  all  around, 
clinking  their  glasses  loudly;  then  they  start 
again,  in  the  thick  night  and  under  the  incessant 
rain,  but  this  time  on  the  highway,  in  a  band  and 
singing.  Nothing  in  the  hands,  nothing  in  the 
pockets:  they  are  now  ordinary  people,  return- 
ing from  a  natural  promenade. 

In  the  rear  guard,  at  a  distance  from  the 
singers,  Itchoua  on  his  long  legs  walks  with  his 
hands  resting  on  Ramuntcho's  shoulder.  In- 
terested and  ardent  for  success,  since  the  sum  has 
been  agreed  upon,  Itchoua  whispers  in  Ramun- 
tcho's ear  imperious  advices.  Like  Arrochkoa, 
he  wishes  to  act  with  stunning  abruptness,  in  the 
surprise  of  a  first  interview  which  will  occur  in 
the  evening,  as  late  as  the  rule  of  a  convent  will 
permit,  at  an  uncertain  and  twilight  hour,  when 
the  village  shall  have  begun  to  sleep. 

"Above  all,"  he  says,  "do  not  show  yourself 
beforehand.  She  must  not  have  seen  you,  she 
must  not  even  know  that  you  have  returned 
home!  You  must  not  lose  the  advantage  of 
surprise — " 


238  Ramuntcho. 

While  Ramuntcho  listens  and  meditates  in 
silence,  the  others,  who  lead  the  march,  sing  al- 
ways the  same  old  song  that  times  their  steps. 
And  thus  they  re-enter  Landachkoa,  village  of 
France,  crossing  the  bridge  of  the  Nivelle,  under 
the  beards  of  the  Spanish  carbineers. 

They  have  no  sort  of  illusion,  the  watching 
carbineers,  about  what  these  men,  so  wet,  have 
been  doing  at  an  hour  so  black. 


Ramuntcho.  239 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  winter,  the  real  winter,  extended  itself  by 
degrees  over  the  Basque  land,  after  the  few  days 
of  frost  that  had  come  to  annihilate  the  annual 
plants,  to  change  the  deceptive  aspect  of  the 
fields,  to  prepare  the  following  spring. 

And  Ramuntcho  acquired  slowly  his  habits  of 
one  left  alone;  in  his  house,  wherein  he  lived  still, 
without  anybody  to  serve  him,  he  took  care  of 
himself,  as  in  the  colonies  or  in  the  barracks, 
knowing  the  thousand  little  details  of  housekeep- 
ing which  careful  soldiers  practice.  He  pre- 
served the  pride  of  dress,  dressed  himself  well, 
wore  the  ribbon  of  the  brave  at  his  buttonhole 
and  a  wide  crape  around  his  sleeve. 

At  first  he  was  not  assiduous  at  the  village 
cider  mill,  where  the  men  assembled  in  the  cold 
evenings.  In  his  three  years  of  travel,  of  read- 
ing, of  talking  with  different  people,  too  many 
new  ideas  had  penetrated  his  already  open  mind ; 
among  his  former  companions  he  felt  more  out- 
cast than  before,  more  detached  from  the  thou- 
sand little  things  which  composed  their  life. 

Little  by  little,  however,  by  dint  of  being  alone, 


240  Ramuntcho. 

by  dint  of  passing  by  the  halls  where  the  men 
drank, — on  the  window-panes  of  which  a  lamp 
always  sketches  the  shadows  of  Basque  caps, — 
he  had  made  it  a  custom  to  go  in  and  to  sit  at  a 
table. 

It  was  the  season  when  the  Pyrenean  villages, 
freed  from  the  visitors  which  the  summers  bring, 
imprisoned  by  the  clouds,  the  mist,  or  the  snow, 
are  more  intensely  as  they  were  in  ancient  times. 
In  these  cider  mills — sole,  little,  illuminated 
points,  living,  in  the  midst  of  the  immense,  empty 
darkness  of  the  fields — something  of  the  spirit  of 
former  times  is  reanimated  in  winter  evenings. 
In  front  of  the  large  casks  of  cider  arranged  in 
lines  in  the  background  where  it  is  dark,  the 
lamp,  hanging  from  the  beams,  throws  its  light 
on  the  images  of  saints  that  decorate  the  walls, 
on  the  groups  of  mountaineers  who  talk  and 
who  smoke.  At  times  someone  sings  a  plain- 
tive song  which  came  from  the  night  of  centuries ; 
the  beating  of  a  tambourine  recalls  to  life  old, 
forgotten  rhythms;  a  guitar  reawakens  a  sadness 
of  the  epoch  of  the  Moors. — Or,  in  the  face  of 
each  other,  two  men,  with  castanets  in  their 
hands,  suddenly  dance  the  fandango,  swinging 
themselves  with  an  antique  grace. 

And,  from  these  innocent,  little  inns,  they  re- 
tire early — especially  in  these  bad,  rainy  nights 


Ramuntciio.  241 

the  darkness  of  which  is  so  peculiarly  propitious 
to  smuggling,  every  one  here  having  to  do  some 
clandestine  thing  on  the  Spanish  side. 

In  such  places,  in  the  company  of  Arrochkoa, 
Ramuntcho  talked  over  and  commented  upon 
his  cherished,  sacrilegious  project;  or, — during 
the  beautiful  moon-light  nights  which  do  not 
permit  of  undertakings  on  the  frontier — they 
talked  on  the  roads  for  a  long  time. 

Persistent  religious  scruples  made  him  hesi- 
tate a  great  deal,  although  he  hardly  realized  it. 
They  were  inexplicable  scruples,  since  he  had 
ceased  to  be  a  believer.  But  all  his  will,  all  his 
audacity,  all  his  life,  were  concentrated  and 
directed,  more  and  more,  toward  this  unique 
end. 

And  the  prohibition,  ordered  by  Itchoua,  from 
seeing  Gracieuse  before  the  great  attempt,  ex- 
asperated his  impatient  dream. 

The  winter,  capricious  as  it  is  always  in  this 
country,  pursued  its  unequal  march,  with,  from 
time  to  time,  surprises  of  sunlight  and  of  heat. 
There  were  rains  of  a  deluge,  grand,  healthy 
squalls  which  went  up  from  the  Bay  of  Biscay, 
plunged  into  the  valleys,  bending  the  trees 
furiously.  And  then,  repetitions  of  the  wind  of 
the  south,  breaths  as  warm  as  in  summer,  breezes 
smelling  of  Africa,  under  a  sky  at  once  high  and 


242  Ramuntcho. 

sombre,  among  mountains  of  an  intense  brown 
color.  And  also,  glacial  mornings,  wherein  one 
saw,  at  awakening,  summits  become  snowy  and 
white. 

The  desire  often  seized  him  to  finish  every- 
thing.— But  he  had  the  frightful  idea  that  he 
might  not  succeed  and  might  fall  again,  alone 
forever,  without  a  hope  in  life. 

Anyway,  reasonable  pretexts  to  wait  were  not 
lacking.  He  had  to  settle  with  men  of  affairs, 
he  had  to  sell  the  house  and  realize,  for  his  flight, 
all  the  money  that  he  could  obtain.  He  had  also 
to  wait  for  the  answer  of  Uncle  Ignacio,  to  whom 
he  had  announced  his  emigration  and  at  whose 
house  he  expected  to  find  an  asylum. 

Thus  the  days  went  by,  and  soon  the  hasty 
spring  was  to  ferment.  Already  the  yellow  prim- 
rose and  the  blue  gentian,  in  advance  here  by 
several  weeks,  were  in  bloom  in  the  woods  and 
along  the  paths,  in  the  last  suns  of  January — 


Ramuntcho.  243 


CHAPTER  XI. 

They  are  this  time  in  the  cider  mill  of  the 
hamlet  of  Gastelugain,  near  the  frontier,  waiting 
for  the  moment  to  go  out  with  boxes  of  jewelry 
and  weapons. 

And  it  is  Itchoua  who  is  talking: 

"  If  she  hesitates — and  she  will  not  hesitate,  be 
sure  of  it — but  if  she  hesitates,  well !  we  will  kid- 
nap her. — Let  me  arrange  this,  my  plan  is  all 
made.  It  will  be  in  the  evening,  you  understand? 
—We  will  bring  her  anywhere  and  imprison  her 
in  a  room  with  you. — If  it  turns  out  badly — if  I 
am  forced  to  quit  the  country  after  having  done 
this  thing  to  please  you;  then,  you  will  have  to 
give  me  more  money  than  the  amount  agreed 
upon,  you  understand? — Enough,  at  least,  to  let 
me  seek  for  my  bread  in  Spain — " 

"  In  Spain! — What?  What  are  you  going  to 
do,  Itchoua?  I  hope  you  have  not  in  your  head 
the  idea  to  do  things  that  are  too  grave." 

"Oh,  do  not  be  afraid,  my  friend.  I  have  no 
desire  to  assassinate  anybody." 

"  Well !     You  talk  of  running  away — " 

"  I  said  this  as  I  would  have  said  anything  else, 


244  Ramuntcho. 

you  know.  For  some  time,  business  has  been 
bad.  And  then,  suppose  the  thing  turns  out 
badly  and  the  police  make  an  inquiry.  Well,  I 
would  prefer  to  go,  that  is  sure. — For  whenever 
these  men  of  justice  put  their  noses  into  anything, 
they  seek  for  things  that  happened  long  ago,  and 
the  inquiry  never  ends — " 

In  his  eyes,  suddenly  expressive,  appeared 
crime  and  fear.  And  Ramuntcho  looked  with  an 
increase  of  anxiety  at  this  man,  who  was  be- 
lieved to  be  solidly  established  in  the  country 
with  lands  in  the  sunlight,  and  who  accepted  so 
easily  the  idea  of  running  away.  What  sort  of  a 
bandit  is  he  then,  to  be  so  much  afraid  of  justice? 
— And  what  could  be  these  things  that  happened 
long  ago? — After  a  silence  between  them,  Ra- 
muntcho said  in  a  lower  voice,  with  extreme 
distrust: 

"  Imprison  her — you  say  this  seriously,  It- 
choua? — And  where  imprison  her,  if  you  please? 
I  have  no  castle  to  hide  her  in — " 

Then  Itchoua,  with  the  smile  of  a  faun  which 
no  one  had  seen  before,  tapped  his  shoulder: 

"Oh,  imprison  her — for  one  night  only,  my 
son! — It  will  be  enough,  you  may  believe  me. — 
They  are  all  alike,  you  see:  the  first  step  costs; 
but  the  second  one,  they  make  it  all  alone,  and 
quicker  than  you  may  think.  Do  you  imagine 


Ramuntcho.  245 

that  she  would  wish  to  return  to  the  good  sisters, 
afterward? — " 

The  desire  to  slap  that  dull  face  passed  like  an 
electric  shock  through  the  arm  and  the  hand  of 
Ramuntcho.  He  constrained  himself,  however, 
through  a  long  habit  of  respectfulness  for  the  old 
singer  of  the  liturgies,  and  remained  silent,  with 
a  flush  on  his  cheeks,  and  his  look  turned  aside. 
It  revolted  him  to  hear  one  talk  thus  of  her — and 
surprised  him  that  the  one  who  spoke  thus  was 
that  Itchoua  whom  he  had  always  known  as  the 
quiet  husband  of  an  ugly  and  old  woman.  But 
the  blow  struck  by  the  impertinent  phrase  fol- 
lowed nevertheless,  in  his  imagination,  a 
dangerous  and  unforeseen  path. — Gracieuse, 
"imprisoned  a  room  with  him!"  The  im- 
mediate possibility  of  such  a  thing,  so  clearly 
presented  with  a  rough  and  coarse  word,  made 
his  head  swim  like  a  very  violent  liquor. 

He  loved  her  with  too  elevated  a  tenderness,  his 
betrothed,  to  find  pleasure  in  brutal  hopes. 
Ordinarily,  h'e  expelled  from  his  mind  those 
images;  but  now  that  man  had  just  placed  them 
under  his  eye,  with  a  diabolical  crudity,  and  he 
felt  shivers  in  his  flesh,  he  trembled  as  if  the 
weather  were  cold — 

Oh,  whether  the  adventure  fell  or  not  under 
the  blow  of  justice,  well,  so  much  the  worse,  after 


246  Ramuntcho. 

all!  He  had  nothing  to  lose,  all  was  indifferent 
to  him!  And  from  that  evening,  in  the  fever  of 
a  new  desire,  he  felt  more  boldly  decided  to  brave 
the  rules,  the  laws,  the  obstacles  of  this  world. 
Saps  ascended  everywhere  around  him,  on  the 
sides  of  the  brown  Pyrenees;  there  were  longer 
and  more  tepid  nights;  the  paths  were  bordered 
with  violets  and  periwinkles. — But  religious 
scruples  held  him  still.  They  remained,  inex- 
plicably in  the  depth  of  his  disordered  mind:  in- 
stinctive horror  of  profanation ;  belief,  in  spite  of 
everything,  in  something  supernatural  envelop- 
ing, to  defend  them,  churches  and  cloisters — 


Ramuntcho.  247 


CHAPTER  XII. 

The  winter  had  just  come  to  an  end. 

Ramuntcho, — who  had  slept  for  a  few  hours, 
in  a  bad,  tired  sleep,  in  a  small  room  of  the  new 
house  of  his  friend  Florentine,  at  Ururbil, — 
awakened  as  the  day  dawned. 

The  night, — a  night  of  tempest  everywhere,  a 
black  and  troubled  night, — had  been  disastrous 
for  the  smugglers.  Near  Cape  Figuier,  in  the 
rocks  where  they  had  just  landed  from  the  sea 
with  silk  bundles,  they  had  been  pursued  with 
gunshots,  compelled  to  throw  away  their  loads, 
losing  everything,  some  fleeing  to  the  mountain, 
others  escaping  by  swimming  among  the 
breakers,  in  order  to  reach  the  French  shore,  in 
terror  of  the  prisons  of  San  Sebastian. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  exhausted, 
drenched  and  half  drowned,  he  had  knocked  at 
the  door  of  that  isolated  house,  to  ask  from  the 
good  Florentino  his  aid  and  an  asylum. 

And  on  awakening,  after  all  the  nocturnal  noise 
of  the  equinoctial  storm,  of  the  rain,  of  the 
groaning  branches,  twisted  and  broken,  he  per- 
ceived that  a  grand  silence  had  come.  Straining 


248  Ramuntcho. 

his  ear,  he  could  hear  no  longer  the  immense 
breath  of  the  western  wind,  no  longer  the  motion 
of  all  those  things  tormented  in  the  darkness. 
No,  nothing  except  a  far-off  noise,  regular, 
powerful,  continued  and  formidable;  the  roll  of 
the  waters  in  the  depth  of  that  Bay  of  Biscay — 
which,  since  the  beginning,  is  without  truce  and 
troubled;  a  rhythmic  groan,  as  might  be  the 
monstrous  respiration  of  the  sea  in  its  sleep;  a 
series  of  profound  blows  which  seemed  the  blows 
of  a  battering  ram  on  a  wall,  continued  every 
time  by  a  music  of  surf  on  the  beaches. — But  the 
air,  the  trees  and  the  surrounding  things  were 
immovable;  the  tempest  had  finished,  without 
reasonable  cause,  as  it  had  begun,  and  the  sea 
alone  prolonged  the  complaint  of  it. 

To  look  at  that  land,  that  Spanish  coast  which 
he  would  perhaps  never  see  again,  since  his  de- 
parture was  so  near,  he  opened  his  window  on  the 
emptiness,  still  pale,  on  the  virginity  of  the  deso- 
late dawn. 

A  gray  light  emanating  from  a  gray  sky ;  every- 
where the  same  immobility,  tired  and  frozen, 
with  uncertainties  of  aspect  derived  from  the 
night  and  from  dreams.  An  opaque  sky,  which 
had  a  solid  air  and  was  made  of  accumulated, 
small,  horizontal  layers,  as  if  one  had  painted  it 
by  superposing  pastes  of  dead  colors. 


Ramuntcho.  249 

And  underneath,  mountains  black  brown;  then 
Fontarabia  in  a  morose  silhouette,  its  old  belfry 
appearing  blacker  and  more  worn  by  the  years. 
At  that  hour,  so  early  and  so  freshly  mysterious, 
when  the  ears  of  most  men  are  not  yet  open,  it 
seemed  as  if  one  surprised  things  in  their  heart- 
breaking colloquy  of  lassitude  and  of  death,  re- 
lating to  one  another,  at  the  first  flush  of  dawn, 
all  that  they  do  not  say  when  the  day  has  risen. — 
What  was  the  use  of  resisting  the  storm  of  last 
night?  said  the  old  belfry,  sad  and  weary,  stand- 
ing in  the  background  in  the  distance;  what  was 
the  use,  since  other  storms  will  come,  eternally 
others,  other  storms  and  other  tempests,  and 
since  I  will  pass  away,  I  whom  men  have 
elevated  as  a  signal  of  prayer  to  remain  here  for 
incalculable  years? — I  am  already  only  a  spectre, 
come  from  some  other  time;  I  continue  to  ring 
ceremonies  and  illusory  festivals;  but  men  will 
soon  cease  to  be  lured  by  them;  I  ring  also  knells, 
I  have  rung  so  many  knells  for  thousands  of  dead 
persons  whom  nobody  remembers!  And  I  re- 
main here,  useless,  under  the  effort,  almost 
eternal,  of  all  those  western  winds  which  blow 
from  the  sea — 

At  the  foot  of  the  belfry,  the  church,  drawn  in 
gray  tints,  with  an  air  of  age  and  abandonment, 
confessed  also  that  it  was  empty,  that  it  was  vain, 


250  Ramuntcho. 

peopled  only  by  poor  images  made  of  wood  or  of 
stone,  by  myths  without  comprehension,  without 
power  and  without  pity.  And  all  the  houses, 
piously  grouped  for  centuries  around  it,  avowed 
that  its  protection  was  not  efficacious  against 
death,  that  it  was  deceptive  and  untruthful — 

And  especially  the  clouds,  the  clouds  and  the 
mountains,  covered  with  their  immense,  mute 
attestation  what  the  old  city  murmured  beneath 
them;  they  confirmed  in  silence  the  sombre 
truths:  heaven  empty  as  the  churches  are,  serv- 
ing for  accidental  phantasmagoria,  and  uninter- 
rupted times  rolling  their  flood,  wherein  thou- 
sands of  lives,  like  insignificant  nothings,  are, 
one  after  another,  dragged  and  drowned. — A 
knell  began  to  ring  in  that  distance  which  Ra- 
muntcho saw  whitening;  very  slowly,  the  old 
belfry  gave  its  voice,  once  more,  for  the  end  of  a 
life;  someone  was  in  the  throes  of  death  on  the 
other  side  of  the  frontier,  some  Spanish  soul 
over  there  was  going  out,  in  the  pale  morning, 
under  the  thickness  of  those  imprisoning  clouds 
— and  he  had  almost  the  precise  notion  that  this 
soul  would  very  simply  follow  its  body  in  the 
earth  which  decomposes — 

And  Ramuntcho  contemplated  and  listened. 
At  the  little  window  of  that  Basque  house,  which 
before  him  had  sheltered  only  generations  of 


Ramuntcho.  251 

simple-minded  and  confident  people,  leaning  on 
the  wide  sill  which  the  rubbing  of  elbows  had 
worn,  pushing  the  old  shutter  painted  green,  he 
rested  his  eyes  on  the  dull  display  of  that  corner 
of  the  world  which  had  been  his  and  which  he 
was  to  quit  forever.  Those  revelations  which 
things  made,  his  uncultured  mind  heard  them  for 
the  first  time  and  he  lent  to  them  a  frightened 
attention.  An  entire  new  labor  of  unbelief  was 
going  on  suddenly  in  his  mind,  prepared  by 
heredity  to  doubts  and  to  worry.  An  entire 
vision  came  to  him,  sudden  and  seemingly  defini- 
tive, of  the  nothingness  of  religions,  of  the  non- 
existence  of  the  divinities  whom  men  supplicate. 

And  then — since  there  was  nothing,  how 
simple  it  was  to  tremble  still  before  the  white 
Virgin,  chimerical  protector  of  those  convents 
where  girls  are  imprisoned! — 

The  poor  agony  bell,  which  exhausted  itself 
in  ringing  over  there  so  puerilely  to  call  for  use- 
less prayers,  stopped  at  last,  and,  under  the  closed 
sky,  the  respiration  of  the  grand  waters  alone 
was  heard  in  the  distance,  in  the  universal  silence. 
But  the  things  continued,  in  the  uncertain  dawn, 
their  dialogue  without  words :  nothing  anywhere ; 
nothing  in  the  old  churches  venerated  for  so 
long  a  time ;  nothing  in  the  sky  where  clouds  and 
mists  amass;  but  always,  in  the  flight  of  times, 


252  Ramuntcho. 

the  eternal  and  exhausting  renewal  of  beings; 
and  always  and  at  once,  old  age,  death,  ashes — 

That  is  what  they  were  saying,  in  the  pale 
half  light,  the  things  so  dull  and  so  tired.  And 
Ramuntcho,  who  had  heard,  pitied  himself  for 
having  hesitated  so  long  for  imaginary  reasons. 
To  himself  he  swore,  with  a  harsher  despair,  that 
this  morning  he  was  decided;  that  he  would  do 
it,  at  the  risk  of  everything;  that  nothing  would 
make  him  hesitate  longer. 


Ramuntcho.  253 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Weeks  have  elapsed,  in  preparations,  in  anx- 
ious uncertainties  on  the  manner  of  acting,  in 
abrupt  changes  of  plans  and  ideas. 

Between  times,  the  reply  of  Uncle  Ignacio  has 
reached  Etchezar.  If  his  nephew  had  spoken 
sooner,  Ignacio  has  written,  he  would  have  been 
glad  to  receive  him  at  his  house;  but,  seeing  how 
he  hesitated,  Ignacio  had  decided  to  take  a  wife, 
although  he  is  already  an  old  man,  and  now  he 
has  a  child  two  months  old.  Therefore,  there  is 
no  protection  to  be  expected  from  that  side;  the 
exile,  when  he  arrives  there,  may  not  find  even  a 
home — 

The  family  house  has  been  sold,  at  the  notary's 
money  questions  have  been  settled;  all  the  goods 
of  Ramuntcho  have  been  transformed  into  gold 
pieces  which  are  in  his  hand — 

And  now  is  the  day  of  the  supreme  attempt, 
the  great  day, — and  already  the  thick  foliage  has 
returned  to  the  trees,  the  clothing  of  the  tall  grass 
covers  anew  the  prairies ;  it  is  May. 

In  the  little  wagon,  which  the  famous  fast 
horse  drags,  they  roll  on  the  shady  mountain 


254  Ramuntcho. 

paths,  Arrochkoa  and  Ramuntcho,  toward  that 
village  of  Amezqueta.  They  roll  quickly;  they 
plunge  into  the  heart  of  an  infinite  region  of  trees. 
And,  as  the  hour  goes  by,  all  becomes  more 
peaceful  around  them,  and  more  savage;  more 
primitive,  the  hamlets;  more  solitary,  the  Basque 
land. 

In  the  shade  of  the  branches,  on  the  borders 
of  the  paths,  there  are  pink  foxgloves,  silences, 
ferns,  almost  the  same  flora  as  in  Brittany;  these 
two  countries,  the  Basque  and  the  Breton, 
resemble  each  other  by  the  granite  which  is 
everywhere  and  by  the  habitual  rain;  by  the  im- 
mobility also,  and  by  the  continuity  of  the  same 
religious  dream. 

Above  the  two  young  men  who  have  started 
for  the  adventure,  thicken  the  big,  customary 
clouds,  the  sombre  and  low  sky.  The  route 
which  they  follow,  in  these  mountains  ever  and 
ever  higher,  is  deliciously  green,  dug  in  the  shade, 
between  walls  of  ferns. 

Immobility  of  several  centuries,  immobility  in 
beings  and  in  things, — one  has  more  and  more 
the  consciousness  of  it  as  one  penetrates  farther 
into  this  country  of  forests  and  of  silence. 
Under  this  obscure  veil  of  the  sky,  where  are  lost 
the  summits  of  the  grand  Pyrenees,  appear  and 
run  by,  isolated  houses,  centenary  farms,  hamlets 


Ramuntcho.  255 

more  and  more  rare, — and  they  go  always  under 
the  same  vault  of  oaks,  of  ageless  chestnut  trees, 
which  twist  even  at  the  side  of  the  path  their 
roots  like  mossy  serpents.  They  resemble  one 
another,  those  hamlets  separated  from  one  an- 
other by  so  much  forest,  by  so  many  branches, 
and  inhabited  by  an  antique  race,  disdainful  of  all 
that  disturbs,  of  all  that  changes:  the  humble 
church,  most  often  without  a  belfry,  with  a  simple 
campanila  on  its  gray  facade,  and  the  square, 
with  its  wall  painted  for  that  traditional  ball- 
game  wherein,  from  father  to  son,  the  men 
exercise  their  hard  muscles.  Everywhere  reigned 
the  healthy  peace  of  rustic  life,  the  traditions  of 
which  in  the  Basque  land  are  more  immutable 
than  elsewhere. 

The  few  woolen  caps  which  the  two  bold  young 
men  meet  on  their  rapid  passage,  incline  all  in  a 
bow,  from  general  politeness  first,  and  from 
acquaintance  above  all,  for  they  are,  Arrochkoa 
and  Ramuntcho,  the  two  celebrated  pelota  play- 
ers of  the  country; — Ramuntcho,  it  is  true,  had 
been  forgotten  by  many  people,  but  Arrochkoa, 
everybody,  from  Bayonne  to  San  Sebastian, 
knows  his  face  with  healthy  colors  and  the  turned 
up  ends  of  his  catlike  mustache. 

Dividing  the  journey  into  two  stages,  they  have 
slept  last  night  at  Mendichoco.  And  at  present 


256  Ramuntcho. 

they  are  rolling  quickly,  the  two  young  men,  so 
preoccupied  doubtless  that  they  hardly  care  to 
regulate  the  pace  of  their  vigorous  beast. 

Itchoua,  however,  is  not  with  them.  At  the 
last  moment,  a  fear  has  come  to  Ramuntcho  of 
this  accomplice,  whom  he  felt  to  be  capable  of 
everything,  even  of  murder;  in  a  sudden  terror, 
he  has  refused  the  aid  of  that  man,  who  clutched 
the  bridle  of  the  horse  to  prevent  it  from  starting ; 
and  feverishly,  Ramuntcho  has  thrown  gold  in- 
to his  hands,  to  pay  for  his  advice,  to  buy  the 
liberty  to  act  alone,  the  assurance,  at  least,  of  not 
committing  a  crime:  piece  by  piece,  to  break  his 
engagement,  he  has  given  to  Itchoua  a  half  of 
the  agreed  price.  Then,  when  the  horse  is  driven 
at  a  gallop,  when  the  implacable  figure  has 
vanished  behind  a  group  of  trees,  Ramuntcho 
has  felt  his  conscience  lighter — 

"  You  will  leave  my  carriage  at  Aranotz,  at 
Burugoity,  the  inn-keeper's,  who  understands," 
said  Arrochkoa,  "for,  you  understand,  as  soon  as 
you  have  accomplished  your  end  I  will  leave 
you. — We  have  business  with  the  people  of  Bu- 
ruzabal,  horses  to  lead  into  Spain  to-night,  not 
far  from  Amezqueta,  and  I  promised  to  be  there 
before  ten  o'clock — " 

What  will  they  do?  They  do  not  know,  the 
two  allied  friends;  this  will  depend  on  the  turn 


Ramuntcho.  257 

that  things  take;  they  have  different  projects,  all 
bold  and  skilful,  according  to  the  cases  which 
might  present  themselves.  Two  places  have  been 
reserved,  one  for  Ramuntcho  and  the  other  for 
her,  on  board  a  big  emigrant  vessel  on  which  the 
baggage  is  embarked  and  which  will  start  to- 
morrow night  from  Bordeaux  carrying  hundreds 
of  Basques  to  America.  At  this  small  station  of 
Aranotz,  where  the  carriage  will  leave  both  of 
them,  Ramuntcho  and  Gracieuse,  they  will  take 
the  train  for  Bayonne,  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and,  at  Bayonne  afterward,  the  Irun 
express  to  Bordeaux.  It  will  be  a  hasty  flight, 
which  will  not  give  to  the  little  fugitive  the  time 
to  think,  to  regain  her  senses  in  her  terror, — 
doubtless  also  in  her  intoxication  deliciously 
mortal — 

A  gown,  a  mantilla  of  Gracieuse  are  all  ready, 
at  the  bottom  of  the  carriage,  to  replace  the  veil 
and  the  black  uniform:  things  which  she  wore 
formerly,  before  her  vows,  and  which  Arrochkoa 
found  in  his  mother's  closets.  And  Ramuntcho 
thinks  that  it  will  be  perhaps  real,  in  a  moment, 
that  she  will  be  perhaps  there,  at  his  side,  very 
near,  on  that  narrow  seat,  enveloped  with  him 
in  the  same  travelling  blanket,  flying  in  the  midst 
of  night,  to  belong  to  him,  at  once  and  forever; 
— and  in  thinking  of  this  too  much,  he, feels  again 
a  shudder  and  a  dizziness — 


258  Ramuntcho. 

"  I  tell  you  that  she  will  follow  you,"  repeats 
his  friend,  striking  him  rudely  on  the  leg  in 
protective  encouragement,  as  soon  as  he  sees  Ra- 
muntcho sombre  and  lost  in  a  dream.  "  I  tell 
you  that  she  will  follow  you,  I  am  sure!  If  she 
hesitates,  well,  leave  the  rest  to  me !  " 

If  she  hesitates,  then  they  will  be  violent,  they 
are  resolved,  oh,  not  very  violent,  only  enough 
to  unlace  the  hands  of  the  old  nuns  retaining  her. 
— And  then,  they  will  carry  her  into  the  small 
wagon,  where  infallibly  the  enlacing  contact  and 
the  tenderness  of  her  former  friend  will  soon 
turn  her  young  head. 

How  will  it  all  happen?  They  do  not  yet  know, 
relying  a  great  deal  on  their  spirit  of  decision 
which  has  already  dragged  them  out  of  danger- 
ous passes.  But  what  they  know  is  that  they 
will  not  weaken.  And  they  go  ahead,  exciting 
each  other;  one  would  say  that  they  are  united 
now  unto  death,  firm  and  decided  like  two  bandits 
at  the  hour  when  the  capital  game  is  to  be  played. 

The  land  of  thick  branches  which  they  traverse, 
under  the  oppression  of  very  high  mountains 
which  they  do  not  see,  is  all  in  ravines,  profound 
and  torn  up,  in  precipices,  where  torrents  roar 
under  the  green  night  of  the  foliage.  The  oaks, 
the  beeches,  the  chestnut  trees  become  more  and 
more  enormous,  living  through  centuries  off  a 


Ramuntcho.  259 

sap  ever  fresh  and  magnificent.  A  powerful 
verdure  is  strewn  over  that  disturbed  geology; 
for  ages  it  covers  and  classifies  it  under  the  fresh- 
ness of  its  immovable  mantle.  And  this  nebulous 
sky,  almost  obscure,  which  is  familiar  to  the  Bas- 
que country,  adds  to  the  impression  which  they 
have  of  a  sort  of  universal  meditation  wherein 
the  things  are  plunged;  a  strange  penumbra  des- 
cends from  everywhere,  descends  from  the  trees 
at  first,  descends  from  the  thick,  gray  veils  above 
the  branches,  descends  from  the  great  Pyrenees 
hidden  behind  the  clouds. 

And,  in  the  midst  of  this  immense  peace  and 
of  this  green  night,  they  pass,  Ramuntcho  and 
Arrochkoa,  like  two  young  disturbers  going  to 
break  charms  in  the  depths  of  forests.  At  all 
cross  roads  old,  granite  crosses  rise,  like  alarm 
signals  to  warn  them;  old  crosses  with  this  in- 
scription, sublimely  simple,  which  is  here  some- 
thing like  the  device  of  an  entire  race:  "  O  crux, 
ave,  spes  unica! " 

Soon  the  night  will  come.  Now  they  are 
silent,  because  the  hour  is  going,  because  the 
moment  approaches,  because  all  these  crosses  on 
the  road  are  beginning  to  intimidate  them — 

And  the  day  falls,  under  that  sad  veil  which 
covers  the  sky.  The  valleys  become  more  savage, 
the  country  more  deserted.  And,  at  the  corners 


260  Ramuntcho. 

of  roads,  the  old  crosses  appear,  ever  with  their 
similar  inscriptions:  "O  crux,  ave,  spes  imica! " 

Amezqueta,  at  the  last  twilight.  They  stop 
their  carriage  at  an  outskirt  of  the  village,  before 
the  cider  mill.  Arrochkoa  is  impatient  to  go  in- 
to the  house  of  the  sisters,  vexed  at  arriving  so 
late;  he  fears  that  the  door  may  not  be  opened 
to  them.  Ramuntcho,  silent,  lets  him  act. 

It  is  above,  on  the  hill;  it  is  that  isolated  house 
which  a  cross  surmounts  and  which  one  sees  in 
relief  in  white  on  the  darker  mass  of  the  moun- 
tain. They  recommend  that  as  soon  as  the  horse 
is  rested  the  wagon  be  brought  to  them,  at  a 
turn,  to  wait  for  them.  Then,  both  go  into  the 
avenue  of  trees  which  leads  to  that  convent  and 
where  the  thickness  of  the  May  foliage  makes  the 
obscurity  almost  nocturnal.  Without  saying 
anything  to  each  other,  without  making  a  noise 
with  their  sandals,  they  ascend  in  a  supple  and 
easy  manner;  around  them  the  profound  fields 
are  impregnated  by  the  immense  melancholy  of 
the  night. 

Arrochkoa  knocks  with  his  finger  on  the  door 
of  the  peaceful  house: 

"  I  would  like  to  see  my  sister,  if  you  please,'' 
he  says  to  an  old  nun  who  opens  the  door, 
astonished — 

Before  he  has  finished  talking,  a  cry  of  joy 


Ramuntcho.  261 

comes  from  the  dark  corridor,  and  a  nun,  whom 
one  divines  is  young  in  spite  of  the  envelopment 
of  her  dissembling  costume,  comes  and  takes  his 
hand.  She  has  recognized  him  by  his  voice, — 
but  has  she  divined  the  other  who  stays  behind 
and  does  not  talk? — 

The  Mother  Superior  has  come  also,  and,  in 
the  darkness  of  the  stairway,  she  makes  them  go 
up  to  the  parlor  of  the  little  country  convent; 
then  she  brings  the  cane-seat  chairs  and  every- 
one sits  down,  Arrochkoa  near  his  sister,  Ramun- 
tcho opposite, — and  they  face  each  other  at  last, 
the  two  lovers,  and  a  silence,  full  of  the  beating 
of  arteries,  full  of  leaps  of  hearts,  full  of  fever, 
descends  upon  them — 

Truly,  in  this  place,  one  knows  not  what  peace 
almost  sweet,  and  a  little  sepulchral  also,  enve- 
lopes the  terrible  interview;  in  the  depth  of  the 
chests,  the  hearts  beat  with  great  blows,  but  the 
words  of  love  or  of  violence,  the  words  die  be- 
fore passing  the  lips. — And  this  peace,  more  and 
more  establishes  itself;  it  seems  as  if  a  white 
shroud  little  by  little  is  covering  everything,  in 
order  to  calm  and  to  extinguish. 

There  is  nothing  very  peculiar,  however,  in 
this  humble  parlor:  four  walls  absolutely  bare 
under  a  coat  of  whitewash;  a  wooden  ceiling;  a 
floor  where  one  slips,  so  carefully  waxed  it  is; 


262  Ramuntcho. 

on  a  table,  a  plaster  Virgin,  already  indistinct, 
among  all  the  similar  white  things  of  the  back- 
ground where  the  twilight  of  May  is  dying.  And 
a  window  without  curtains,  open  on  the  grand 
Pyrenean  horizons  invaded  by  night. — But,  from 
this  voluntary  poverty,  from  this  white  simplicity, 
is  exhaled  a  notion  of  definitive  impersonality, 
of  renunciation  forever;  and  the  irremediability 
of  accomplished  things  begins  to  manifest  itself 
to  the  mind  of  Ramuntcho,  while  bringing  to 
him  a  sort  of  peace,  of  sudden  and  involuntary 
resignation. 

The  two  smugglers,  immovable  on  their  chairs, 
appear  as  silhouettes,  of  wide  shoulders  on  all 
this  white  of  the  walls,  and  of  their  lost  features 
one  hardly  sees  the  black  more  intense  of  the 
mustache  and  the  eyes.  The  two  nuns,  whose 
outlines  are  unified  by  the  veil,  seem  already  to 
be  two  spectres  all  black — 

"  Wait,  Sister  Mary  Angelique,"  says  the 
Mother  Superior  to  the  transformed  young  girl 
who  was  formerly  named  Gracieuse,  "wait  sister 
till  I  light  the  lamp  in  order  that  you  may  at  least 
see  your  brother's  face !  " 

She  goes  out,  leaving  them  together,  and, 
again,  silence  falls  on  this  rare  instant,  perhaps 
unique,  impossible  to  regain,  when  they  are 
alone — • 


Ramuntcho.  263 

She  comes  back  with  a  little  lamp  which  makes 
the  eyes  of  the  smugglers  shine, — and  with  a  gay 
voice,  a  kind  air,  asks,  looking  at  Ramuntcho : 

"And  this  one?  A  second  brother,  I  sup- 
pose?— " 

"Oh,  no,"  says  Arrochkoa  in  a  singular  tone. 
"  He  is  only  my  friend." 

In  truth,  he  is  not  their  brother,  that  Ramun- 
tcho who  stays  there,  ferocious  and  mute. — And 
how  he  would  frighten  the  quiet  nuns  if  they 
knew  what  storm  brings  him  here! — 

The  same  silence  returns,  heavy  and  disquiet- 
ing, on  these  beings  who,  it  seems,  should  talk 
simply  of  simple  things;  and  the  old  Mother 
Superior  remarks  it,  is  astonished  by  it. — But  the 
quick  eyes  of  Ramuntcho  become  immovable, 
veil  themselves  as  if  they  are  fascinated  by  some 
invisible  tamer.  Under  the  harsh  envelope,  still 
beating,  of  his  chest,  the  calmness,  the  imposed 
calmness  continues  to  penetrate  and  to  extend. 
On  him,  doubtless,  are  acting  the  mysterious, 
white  powers  which  are  here  in  the  air;  religious 
heredities  which  were  asleep  in  the  depths  of  his 
being  fill  him  now  with  unexpected  respect  and 
submissiveness;  the  antique  symbols  dominate 
him:  the  crosses  met  in  the  evening  along  the 
road  and  that  plaster  Virgin  of  the  color  of  snow, 
immaculate  on  the  spotless  white  of  the  wall — 


264  Ramuntcho. 

"  Well,  my  children,  talk  of  the  things  of  Et- 
chezar,"  says  the  Mother  Superior  to  Gracieuse 
and  to  her  brother.  "  We  shall  leave  you  alone, 
if  you  wish,"  she  adds  with  a  sign  to  Ramuntcho 
to  follow  her. 

"  Oh,  no"  protests  Arrochkoa,  "Let  him  stay. 
— No,  he  is  not  the  one — who  prevents  us — ' 

And  the  little  nun,  veiled  in  the  fashion  of  the 
Middle  Age,  lowers  her  head,  to  maintain  her 
eyes  hidden  in  the  shade  of  her  austere  headdress. 

The  door  remains  open,  the  window  remains 
open;  the  house,  the  things  retain  their  air  of 
absolute  confidence,  of  absolute  security,  against 
violations  and  sacrilege.  Now  two  other  sisters, 
who  are  very  old,  set  a  small  table,  put  two  covers, 
bring  to  Arrochkoa  and  to  his  friend  a  little  sup- 
per, a  loaf  of  bread,  cheese,  cake,  grapes  from  the 
arbor.  In  arranging  these  things  they  have  a 
youthful  gaiety,  a  babble  almost  childish — and  all 
this  is  strangely  opposed  to  the  ardent  violence 
which  is  here,  hushed,  thrown  back  into  the 
depth  of  minds,  as  under  the  blows  of  some  mace 
covered  with  white — 

And,  in  spite  of  themselves,  they  are  seated  at 
the  table,  the  two  smugglers,  opposite  each  other, 
yielding  to  insistence  and  eating  absent-minded- 
ly the  frugal  things,  on  a  cloth  as  white  as  the 
walls.  Their  broad  shoulders,  accustomed  to 


Ramuntcho.  265 

loads,  lean  on  the  backs  of  the  little  chairs  and 
make  their  frail  wood  crack.  Around  them 
come  and  go  the  Sisters,  ever  with  their  discreet 
talk  and  their  puerile  laugh,  which  escape,  some- 
what softened,  from  under  their  veils.  Alone,  she 
remains  mute  and  motionless,  Sister  Mary  Angel- 
ique:  standing  near  her  brother  who  is  seated, 
she  places  her  hand  on  his  powerful  shoulder;  so 
lithe  beside  him  that  she  looks  like  a  saint  of  a 
primitive  church  picture.  Ramuntcho,  sombre, 
observes  them  both;  he  had  not  been  able  to  see 
yet  the  face  of  Gracieuse,  so  severely  her  head- 
dress framed  it.  They  resemble  each  other  still, 
the  brother  and  the  sister;  in  their  very  long 
eyes,  which  have  acquired  expressions  more  than 
ever  different  remains  something  inexplicably 
similar,  persists  the  same  flame,  that  flame  which 
impelled  one  toward  adventures  and  the  life  of 
the  muscles,  the  other  toward  mystic  dreams,  to- 
ward mortification  and  annihilation  of  flesh. 
But  she  has  become  as  frail  as  he  is  robust;  her 
breast  doubtless  is  no  more,  nor  her  hips;  the 
black  vestment  wherein  her  body  remains  hid- 
den falls  straight  like  a  furrow  enclosing  nothing 
carnal. 

And  now,  for  the  first  time,  they  are  face  to 
face,  Gracieuse  and  Ramuntcho;  their  eyes  have 
met  and  gazed  on  one  another.  She  does  not 


266  Ramuntcho. 

lower  her  head  before  him;  but  it  is  as  from  an 
infinite  distance  that  she  looks  at  him,  it  is  as 
from  behind  white  mists  that  none  may  scale,  as 
from  the  other  side  of  an  abyss,  as  from  the  other 
side  of  death;  very  soft,  nevertheless,  her  glance 
indicates  that  she  is  as  if  she  were  absent,  gone 
to  tranquil  and  inaccessible  other  places. — And 
it  is  Ramuntcho  at  last  who,  still  more  tamed, 
lowers  his  ardent  eyes  before  her  virgin  eyes. 

They  continue  to  babble,  the  Sisters;  they 
would  like  to  retain  them  both  at  Amezqueta  for 
the  night:  the  weather,  they  say,  is  so  black,  and 
a  storm  threatens. — M.  the  Cure,  who  went  out  to 
take  communion  to  a  patient  in  the  mountain, 
will  come  back;  he  has  known  Arrochkoa  at 
Etchezar  when  a  vicar  there;  he  would  be  glad 
to  give  him  a  room  in  the  parish  house — and  one 
to  his  friend  also,  of  course — 

But  no,  Arrochkoa  refuses,  after  a  questioning 
glance  at  Ramuntcho.  It  is  impossible  to  stay  in 
the  village;  they  will  even  go  at  once,  or  after  a 
few  moments  of  conversation,  for  they  are  ex- 
pected on  the  Spanish  frontier. — Gracieuse  who, 
at  first,  in  her  mortal  disturbance  of  mind,  had 
not  dared  to  talk,  begins  to  question  her  brother. 
Now  in  Basque,  then  in  French,  she  asks  for  news 
of  those  whom  she  has  forever  abandoned : 

"And  mother?  All  alone  now  in  the  house, 
even  at  night?  " 


Ramuntcho.  267 

"Oh,  no,"  says  Arrochkoa,  "Catherine  watches 
over  her  and  sleeps  at  the  house." 

"And  how  is  your  child,  Arrochkoa,  has  he 
been  christened?  What  is  his  name?  Lawrence, 
doubtless,  like  his  grandfather." 

Etchezar,  their  village,  is  separated  from 
Amezqueta  by  some  sixty  kilometres,  in  a  land 
without  more  means  of  communication  than  in 
the  past  centuries: 

"Oh,  in  spite  of  the  distance,"  says  the  little 
nun,  "  I  get  news  of  you  sometimes.  Last 
month,  people  here  had  met  on  the  market  place 
of  Hasparren,  women  of  our  village;  that  is  how 
I  learned — many  things. — At  Easter  I  had  hoped 
to  see  you;  I  was  told  that  there  would  be  a  ball- 
game  at  Erricalde  and  that  you  would  come  to 
play  there;  then  I  said  to  myself  that  perhaps 
you  would  come  here — and,  while  the  festival 
lasted,  I  looked  often  at  the  road  through  this 
window,  to  see  if  you  were  coming — " 

And  she  shows  the  window,  open  on  the  black- 
ness of  the  savage  country — from  which  ascends 
an  immense  silence,  with,  from  time  to  time,  the 
noise  of  spring,  intermittent  musical  notes  of 
crickets  and  tree-toads. 

Hearing  her  talk  so  quietly,  Ramuntcho  feels 
confounded  by  this  renunciation  of  all  things;  she 
appears  to  him  still  more  irrevocably  changed, 


268  Ramuntcho. 

far-off — poor  little  nun! — Her  name  was  Graci- 
euse;  now  her  name  is  Sister  Mary  Angelique, 
and  she  has  no  relatives;  impersonal  here,  in  this 
little  house  with  white  walls,  without  terrestrial 
hope  and  without  desire,  perhaps — one  might  as 
well  say  that  she  has  departed  for  the  regions  of 
the  grand  oblivion  of  death.  And  yet,  she  smiles, 
quite  serene  now  and  apparently  not  even  suf- 
fering. 

Arrochkoa  looks  at  Ramuntcho,  questions  him 
with  a  piercing  eye  accustomed  to  fathom  the 
black  depths — and,  tamed  himself  by  all  this  un- 
expected peace,  he  understands  very  well  that  his 
bold  comrade  dares  no  longer,  that  all  the  pro- 
jects have  fallen,  that  all  is  useless  and  inert  in 
presence  of  the  invisible  wall  with  which  his  sister 
is  surrounded.  At  moments,  pressed  to  end  all 
in  one  way  or  in  another,  in  a  haste  to  break  this 
charm  or  to  submit  to  it  and  to  fly  before  it,  he 
pulls  his  watch,  says  that  it  is  time  to  go,  because 
of  the  friends  who  are  waiting  for  them. — The 
Sisters  know  well  who  these  friends  are  and  why 
they  are  waiting  but  they  are  not  affected  by 
this:  Basques  themselves,  daughters  and  grand- 
daughters of  Basques,  they  have  the  blood  of 
smugglers  in  their  veins  and  consider  such 
things  indulgently — 

At  last,  for  the  first  time,  Gracieuse  utters  the 


Ramuntcho.  269 

name  of  Ramuntcho;  not  daring,  however,  to  ad- 
dress him  directly,  she  asks  her  brother,  with  a 
calm  smile: 

"  Then  he  is  with  you,  Ramuntcho,  now?  You 
work  together?  " 

A  silence  follows,  and  Arrochkoa  looks  at  Ra- 
muntcho. 

"  No,"  says  the  latter,  in  a  slow  and  sombre 
voice,  "no — I,  I  go  to-morrow  to  America — " 

Every  word  of  this  reply,  harshly  scanned,  is 
like  a  sound  of  trouble  and  of  defiance  in  the 
midst  of  that  strange  serenity.  She  leans  more 
heavily  on  her  brother's  shoulder,  the  little  nun, 
and  Ramuntcho,  conscious  of  the  profound  blow 
which  he  has  struck,  looks  at  her  and  envelopes 
her  with  his  tempting  eyes,  having  regained  his 
audacity,  attractive  and  dangerous  in  the  last  ef- 
fort of  his  heart  full  of  love,  of  his  entire  being  of 
youth  and  of  flame  made  for  tenderness. — Then, 
for  an  uncertain  minute,  it  seems  as  if  the  little 
convent  had  trembled;  it  seems  as  if  the  white 
powers  of  the  air  recoiled,  went  out  like  sad,  un- 
real mists  before  this  young  dominator,  come 
here  to  hurl  the  triumphant  appeal  of  life.  And 
the  silence  which  follows  is  the  heaviest  of  all  the 
silent  moments  which  have  interrupted  already 
that  species  of  drama  played  almost  without 
words — 


2  70  Ramuntcho. 

At  last,  Sister  Mary  Angelique  talks,  and 
talks  to  Ramuntcho  himself.  Really  it  does  not 
seem  as  if  her  heart  had  just  been  torn  supremely 
by  the  announcement  of  that  departure,  nor  as  if 
she  had  just  shuddered  under  that  lover's  look. — 
With  a  voice  which  little  by  little  becomes  firmer 
in  softness,  she  says  very  simple  things,  as  to 
any  friend. 

"Oh,  yes — Uncle  Ignacio? — I  had  always 
thought  that  you  would  go  to  rejoin  him  there. — 
We  shall  all  pray  the  Holy  Virgin  to  accompany 
you  in  your  voyage — " 

And  it  is  the  smuggler  who  lowers  the  head, 
realizing  that  all  is  ended,  that  she  is  lost  forever, 
the  little  companion  of  his  childhood;  that  she 
has  been  buried  in  an  inviolable  shroud. — The 
words  of  love  and  of  temptation  which  he  had 
thought  of  saying,  the  projects  which  he  had 
revolved  in  his  mind  for  months,  all  these  seemed 
insensate,  sacrilegious,  impossible  things,  child- 
ish bravadoes. — Arrochkoa,  who  looks  at  him 
attentively,  is  under  the  same  irresistible  and  light 
charm;  they  understand  each  other  and,  to  one 
another,  without  words,  they  confess  that  there 
is  nothing  to  do,  that  they  will  never  dare — 

Nevertheless  an  anguish  still  human  appears 
in  the  eyes  of  Sister  Mary  Angelique  when  Ar- 
rochkoa rises  for  the  definite  departure:  she 


Ramimtcho.  271 

prays,  in  a  changed  voice,  for  them  to  stay  a  mo- 
ment longer.  And  Ramimtcho  suddenly  feels 
like  throwing  himself  on  his  knees  in  front  of 
her;  his  head  on  the  hem  of  her  veil,  sobbing  all 
the  tears  that  stifle  him;  like  begging  for  mercy, 
like  begging  for  mercy  also  of  that  Mother 
Superior  who  has  so  soft  an  air;  like  telling  both 
of  them  that  this  sweetheart  of  his  childhood  was 
his  hope,  his  courage,  his  life,  and  that  people 
must  have  a  little  pity,  people  must  give  her  back 
to  him,  because,  without  her,  there  is  no  longer 
anything. — All  that  his  heart  contains  that  is  in- 
finitely good  is  exalted  at  present  into  an  im- 
mense necessity  to  implore,  into  an  outbreak  of 
supplicating  prayer  and  also  into  a  confidence  in 
the  kindness,  in  the  pity  of  others — 

And  who  knows,  if  he  had  dared  formulate  that 
great  prayer  of  pure  tenderness,  who  knows  what 
he  might  have  awakened  of  kindness  also,  and  of 
tenderness  and  of  humanity  in  the  poor,  black- 
veiled  girl? — Perhaps  this  old  Mother  Superior 
herself,  this  old,  dried-up  girl  with  childish  smile 
and  grave,  pure  eyes,  would  have  opened  her 
arms  to  him,  as  to  a  son,  understanding  every- 
thing, forgiving  everything,  despite  the  rules  and 
despite  the  vows?  And  perhaps  Gracieuse 
might  have  been  returned  to  him,  without  kid- 
napping, without  deception,  almost  excused  by 


272  Ramuntcho. 

her  companions  of  the  cloister.  Or  at  last,  if 
that  was  impossible,  she  would  have  bade  him  a 
long  farewell,  consoling,  softened  by  a  kiss  of 
immaterial  love — 

But  no,  he  stays  there  mute  on  his  chair. 
Even  that  prayer  he  cannot  make.  And  it  is  the 
hour  to  go,  decidedly.  Arrochkoa  is  up,  agitated, 
calling  him  with  an  imperious  sign  of  the  head. 
Then  he  straightens  up  also  his  proud  bust  and 
takes  his  cap  to  follow  Arrochkoa.  They  express 
their  thanks  for  the  little  supper  which  was  given 
to  them  and  they  say  good-night,  timidly. 
During  their  entire  visit  they  were  very  respect- 
ful, almost  timid,  the  two  superb  smugglers. 
And,  as  if  hope  had  not  just  been  undone,  as  if 
one  of  them  was  not  leaving  behind  him  his  life, 
they  descend  quietly  the  neat  stairway,  between 
the  white  walls,  while  the  good  Sisters  light  the 
way  with  their  little  lamp. 

"  Come,  Sister  Mary  Angelique,"  gaily  pro- 
poses the  Mother  Superior,  in  her  frail,  in- 
fantile voice,  "we  shall  escort  them  to  the  end  of 
our  avenue,  you  know,  near  the  village." 

Is  she  an  old  fairy,  sure  of  her  power,  or  a 
simple  and  unconscious  woman,  playing  without 
knowing  it,  with  a  great,  devouring  fire? — It  was 
all  finished;  the  parting  had  been  accomplished; 
the  farewell  accepted;  the  struggle  stifled  under 


Ramuntcho.  273 

white  wadding, — and  now  the  two  who  adored 
each  other  are  walking  side  by  side,  outside,  in 
the  tepid  night  of  spring ! — in  the  amorous,  envel- 
oping night,  under  the  cover  of  the  new  leaves 
and  on  the  tall  grass,  among  all  the  saps  that 
ascend  in  the  midst  of  the  sovereign  growth  of 
universal  life. 

They  walk  with  short  steps,  through  this  ex- 
quisite obscurity,  as  in  silent  accord,  to  make  the 
shaded  path  last  longer,  both  mute,  in  the  ardent 
desire  and  the  intense  fear  of  contact  of  their 
clothes,  of  a  touch  of  their  hands.  Arrochkoa 
and  the  Mother  Superior  follow  them  closely,  on 
their  heels;  without  talking,  nuns  with  their 
sandals,  smugglers  with  their  rope  soles,  they 
go  through  these  soft,  dark  spots  without  making 
more  noise  than  phantoms,  and  their  little  cor- 
tege, slow  and  strange,  descends  toward  the 
wagon  in  a  funereal  silence.  Silence  also  around 
them,  everywhere  in  the  grand,  ambient  black, 
in  the  depth  of  the  mountains  and  the  woods. 
And,  in  the  sky  without  stars,  sleep  the  big 
clouds,  heavy  with  all  the  water  that  the  soil  a- 
waits  and  which  will  fall  to-morrow  to  make  the 
woods  still  more  leafy,  the  grass  still  higher;  the 
big  clouds  above  their  heads  cover  all  the 
splendor  of  the  southern  summer  which  so  often, 
in  their  childhood,  charmed  them  together,  dis- 


2  74  Ramuntcho. 

turbed  them  together,  but  which  Ramuntcho 
will  doubtless  never  see  again  and  which  in  the 
future  Gracieuse  will  have  to  look  at  with  eyes 
of  one  dead,  without  understanding  nor  recogni- 
zing it — 

There  is  no  one  around  them,  in  the  little 
obscure  alley,  and  the  village  seems  asleep  al- 
ready. The  night  has  fallen  quite;  its  grand 
mystery  is  scattered  everywhere,  on  the  moun- 
tains and  the  savage  valleys. — And,  how  easy  it 
would  be  to  execute  what  these  two  young  men 
have  resolved,  in  that  solitude,  with  that  wagon 
which  is  ready  and  that  fast  horse! — 

However,  without  having  talked,  without  hav- 
ing touched  each  other,  they  come,  the  lovers,  to 
that  turn  of  the  path  where  they  must  bid  each 
other  an  eternal  farewell.  The  wagon  is  there, 
held  by  a  boy;  the  lantern  is  lighted  and  the 
horse  impatient.  The  Mother  Superior  stops:  it 
is,  apparently,  the  last  point  of  the  last  walk 
which  they  will  take  together  in  this  world, — 
and  she  feels  the  power,  that  old  nun,  to  decide 
that  it  will  be  thus,  without  appeal.  With  the 
same  little,  thin  voice,  almost  gay,  she  says: 

"  Come,  Sister,  say  good-bye." 

And  she  says  that  with  the  assurance  of  a 
Fate  whose  decrees  of  death  are  not  disputable. 

In  truth,  nobody  attempts  to  resists  her  order, 


Ramuntcho.  275 

impassibly  given.  He  is  vanquished,  the  rebel- 
lious Ramuntcho,  oh,  quite  vanquished  by  the 
tranquil,  white  powers;  trembling  still  from  the 
battle  which  has  just  come  to  an  end  in  him,  he 
lowers  his  head,  without  will  now,  and  almost 
without  thought,  as  under  the  influence  of  some 
sleeping  potion — 

"  Come,  Sister,  say  good-bye,"  the  old,  tran- 
quil Fate  has  said.  Then,  seeing  that  Gracieuse 
has  only  taken  Arrochkoa's  hand,  she  adds: 

"  Well,  you  do  not  kiss  your  brother? — " 

Doubtless,  the  little  Sister  Mary  Angelique 
asks  for  nothing  better,  to  kiss  him  with  all  her 
heart,  with  all  her  soul;  to  clasp  him,  her  brother, 
to  lean  on  his  shoulder  and  to  seek  his  protection, 
at  that  hour  of  superhuman  sacrifice  when  she 
must  let  the  cherished  one  leave  her  without 
even  a  word  of  love. — And  still,  her  kiss  has  in 
it  something  frightened,  at  once  drawn  back; 
the  kiss  of  a  nun,  somewhat  similar  to  the  kiss  of 
one  dead. — When  will  she  ever  see  him  again, 
that  brother,  who  is  not  to  leave  the  Basque 
country,  however?  When  will  she  have  news  of 
her  mother,  of  the  house,  of  the  village,  from 
some  passer-by  who  will  stop  here,  coming  from 
Etchezar? — 

"  We  will  pray,"  she  says  again,  "to  the  Holy 
Virgin  to  protect  you  in  your  long  voyage — " 


2  76  Ramuntcho. 

— And  how  they  go;  slowly  they  turn  back, 
like  silent  shades,  toward  the  humble  convent 
which  the  cross  protects,  and  the  two  tamed 
smugglers,  immovable  on  the  road,  look  at  their 
veils,  darker  than  the  night  of  the  trees,  disap- 
pearing in  the  obscure  avenue. 

Oh!  she  is  wrecked  also,  the  one  who  will  dis- 
appear in  the  darkness  of  the  little,  shady  hill. — 
But  she  is  nevertheless  soothed  by  white,  peace- 
ful vapors,  and  all  that  she  suffers  will  soon  be 
quieted  under  a  sort  of  sleep.  To-morrow  she 
will  take  again,  until  death,  the  course  of  her 
strangely  simple  existence;  impersonal,  devoted 
to  a  series  of  daily  duties  which  never  change, 
absorbed  in  a  reunion  of  creatures  almost  neutral, 
who  have  abdicated  everything,  she  will  be  able 
to  walk  with  eyes  lifted  ever  toward  the  soft, 
celestial  mirage — 

O  crux,  ave,  spes  unica! — 

To  live,  without  variety  or  truce  to  the  end, 
between  the  white  walls  of  a  cell  always  the 
same,  now  here,  then  elsewhere,  at  the  pleasure 
of  a  strange  will,  in  one  of  those  humble  village 
convents  to  which  one  has  not  even  the  leisure 
to  become  attached.  On  this  earth,  to  possess 
nothing  and  to  desire  nothing,  to  wait  for  no- 
thing, to  hope  for  nothing.  To  accept  as  empty 
and  transitory  the  fugitive  hours  of  this  world, 


Ramuntcho.  277 

and  to  feel  freed  from  everything,  even  from 
love,  as  much  as  by  death. — The  mystery  of 
such  lives  remains  forever  unintelligible  to  those 
young  men  who  are  there,  made  for  the  daily 
battle,  beautiful  beings  of  instinct  and  of  strength, 
a  prey  to  all  the  desires ;  created  to  enjoy  life  and 
to  suffer  from  it,  to  love  it  and  to  continue  it — 

O  crux,  ave,  spes  unica! — One  sees  them  no 
longer,  they  have  re-entered  their  little,  solitary 
convent. 

The  two  men  have  not  exchanged  even  a 
word  on  their  abandoned  undertaking,  on  the 
ill-defined  cause  which  for  the  first  time  has  un- 
done their  courage;  they  feel,  toward  one  an- 
other, almost  a  sense  of  shame  of  their  sudden 
and  insurmountable  timidity. 

For  an  instant  their  proud  heads  were  turned 
toward  the  nuns  slowly  fleeing;  now  they  look 
at  each  other  through,  the  night. 

They  are  going  to  part,  and  probably  forever: 
Arrochkoa  puts  into  his  friends  hands  the  reins 
of  the  little  wagon  which,  according  to  his  pro- 
mise, he  lends  to  him: 

"  Well,  my  poor  Ramuntcho ! — "  he  says,  in  a 
tone  of  commiseration  hardly  affectionate. 

And  the  unexpressed  end  of  the  phrase 
signifies  clearly: 

"  Go,  since  you  have  failed ;  and  I  have  to  go 
and  meet  my  friends — " 


278  Ramuntcho. 

Ramuntcho  would  have  kissed  him  with  all 
his  heart  for  the  last  farewell, — and  in  this  em- 
brace of  the  brother  of  the  beloved  one,  he  would 
have  shed  doubtless  good,  hot  tears  which,  for 
a  moment  at  least,  would  have  cured  him  a  little. 

But  no,  Arrochkoa  has  become  again  the  Ar- 
rochkoa  of  the  bad  days,  the  gambler  without 
soul,  that  only  bold  things  interest.  Absent- 
mindedly,  he  touches  Ramuntcho's  hand: 

"  Well,  good-bye!— Good  luck—" 

And,  with  silent  steps,  he  goes  toward  the 
smugglers,  toward  the  frontier,  toward  the  pro- 
pitious darkness. 

Then  Ramuntcho,  alone  in  the  world  now, 
whips  the  little,  mountain  horse  who  gallops 
with  his  light  tinkling  of  bells. — That  train  which 
will  pass  by  Aranotz,  that  vessel  which  will  start 
from  Bordeaux — an  instinct  impels  Ramuntcho 
not  to  miss  them.  Mechanically  he  hastens,  no 
longer  knowing  why,  like  a  body  without  a  mind 
which  continues  to  obey  an  ancient  impulsion, 
and,  very  quickly,  he  who  has  no  aim  and  no 
hope  in  the  world,  plunges  into  the  savage 
country,  into  the  thickness  of  the  woods,  in  all 
that  profound  blackness  of  the  night  of  May, 
which  the  nuns,  from  their  elevated  window,  see 
around  them — 

For  him  the  native  land  is  closed,  closed  for- 


Ramuntcho.  279 

ever;  finished  are  the  delicious  dreams  of  his 
first  years.  He  is  a  plant  uprooted  from  the 
dear,  Basque  soil  and  which  a  breath  of  ad- 
venture blows  elsewhere. 

At  the  horse's  neck,  gaily  the  bells  tinkle,  in 
the  silence  of  the  sleeping  woods;  the  light  of 
the  lantern,  which  runs  hastily,  shows  to  the 
sad  fugitive  the  under  side  of  branches,  fresh 
verdure  of  oaks;  by  the  wayside,  flowers  of 
France;  from  distance  to  distance,  the  walls  of 
a  familiar  hamlet,  of  an  old  church, — all  the 
things  which  he  will  never  see  again,  unless  it 
be,  perhaps,  in  a  doubtful  and  very  distant  old 
age- 
In  front  of  his  route,  there  is  America,  exile 
without  probable  return,  an  immense  new 
world,  full  of  surprises  and  approached  now 
without  courage :  an  entire  life,  very  long,  doubt- 
less, during  which  his  mind  plucked  from  here 
will  have  to  suffer  and  to  harden  over  there;  his 
vigor  spend  and  exhaust  itself  none  knows  where, 
in  unknown  labors  and  struggles — 

Above,     in     their    little    convent,     in     their 
sepulchre  with  walls  so  white,  the  tranquil  nuns 
recite  their  evening  prayers — 
O  crux,  ave,  spes  unica! — 


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and  whose  pen  pictures  of  the  picturesque  scenery  of  Ireland  are  spirited 
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Morrison,  Arthur 

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Peel,  Sir  Robert 


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The  Lady  Maud  :      With  illustrations  by  A.  Burnham 

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"What  Cheer?"      Author  of  "The  Lady  Maud,"  "  Wreck 

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the  outcast,  and  the  heroine  herself,  are  vividly  presented,  and  the  stage 
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Thomas,  Chauncey 

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true  and  sympathetic  insight  that  is  certain  to  please  and  at  the  same  time 
instruct.  Uncle  Scipio  is  a  dear  old  negro  slave  that  you  are  sure  to  be- 
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pretentious  works,  yet  it  has  an  added  charm  of  simplicity  and  sympathy 
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It  is  superflous  to  analyze  the  work  of  the  author  of  "The  Master."  Go 
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